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Not The Author · 07-18-2010, 09:34 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.

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Had it been someone else, they might have stepped back in shock at the sudden appearance of a beautiful woman behind them (let alone one that was on fire), lost their footing, and fallen into the lava below. As it was, Jacob had grown used to people inexplicably cropping up within his vicinity, and the only thing that jumped was his eyebrow.

The woman was exactly as the etchings depicted her - gracefully muscular, a good head or two taller than most, clad in a one-piece dress of feathers that ended just below her shins. Admittedly, the stone carvings failed to convey a few important details of her figure. The woman's flesh was composed of molten rock; the feathers of her dress, some glassy iridescent crystal. Her eyes were likewise crystalline, jet black and polished smooth. At first glance she appeared bald, until one realized that her long, curly hair was composed of the crackling flames running from her scalp down the middle of her back.

The woman glared scornfully down on Jacob, apparently waiting for some explanation. Unfortunately for her, Jacob was an expert at subject evasion. He circled her, scanning her figure as one might inspect livestock, never quite meeting her eye.

"So what are you, the local Goddess or something?"

Despite the woman's expression growing colder, the ambient temperature managed to rise a degree or two. Your fate is already grim. I would suggest you not endanger yourself further.

Several things occurred to Jacob simultaneously. Glancing towards the edge of the precipice, he noted that yes, the large black statue had inexplicably vanished from its pedestal and was very probably now staring down his neck. Typical that a delusional, irate being of probably-considerable power would manage to find him first. He sighed, wishing the woman would simply go away and leave him to kill off Sen.

"John!"

A curt reply, muffled and distorted by echoes.

"Did you touch anything?"

A lengthier, indignant reply that sort of trailed off in a discouraging manner. Fantastic.

Jacob turned around to find the flaming interloper glaring back down the path to the lobby. Why did you bring him here?

He wiped his brow, mentally noting to acquire a handkerchief at some point. "Followed me, actually. Now, if you'll excuse me..." The lava-woman whirled around, the heat once again minutely intensifying. What of the others?

The chronomancer snorted. "I don't know, I- wait..."

As he considered the implications of someone who'd been locked away in a volcano knowing of the existence of both John and "others," Jacob idly noted that the statue's feet didn't actually touch the ground. Nor did she bother to replicate the movement of walking with any great accuracy as she moved. Of course, he didn't have much time to take note of these things before she was grasping his chin rather a lot more tightly than he would have liked.

Jacob's thoughts ran approximately so: Ugh, my reflexes are usually quicker than that. Cutting her would probably just piss her off. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Should've just left when I had the chance. Why am I not burning to death right now? Skin's smoother than lava should be... Oh wait, she's talking to me.

...trespassing on holy ground, attempted theft of the holy ground itself- "Okay, hang on, I didn't-" The statue pointed accusingly at his floating melon of lava. "Oh." The woman tightened her grip. I shall keep you here until I have some idea of what to do with you. Until then-

"Leave him alone!" The woman went rigid, releasing her hold on Jacob, face contorting in shock. One of her eyes twitched as a thin black ripple passed along her body. Though he knew she couldn't have lungs, Jacob had the distinct impression she would be breathing heavily if she did.

There was a musical clinking as the woman's dress decomposed, constituent feathershards gracefully rearranging themselves along her arms in a set of crystal wings. Likewise, the woman recomposed herself, managing to regain some semblance of serenity in her features. She folded her hands together as though in prayer as the last crystalline fragment slotted itself into place. She slowly turned, the grace of her movements setting of several alarms in Jacob's head compared to her previous anger and haste.

The heat seemed to have physical presence by this point.

The fire-goddess slowly turned to John, whose aggressive stance was beginning to waver somewhat. You thought you, a mere... She glanced at his hands and blinked. ...mortal, could hope to fight a Goddess? She advanced, slowly, steadily. Whether through stubbornness, stupidity, being paralyzed in fear, or some combination of the three, John held his ground. Mostly. In her own domain, no less?

The tip of the self-declared goddess' finger turned to black glass as she tapped the cryomancer's staff. This is a powerful toy, but you could never- John lashed out angrily with his staff, barely missing the woman of fire. "It's not a toy!"

And then she had him around the neck, pinned to the wall.

You are wasting my time and I am out of patience. John struggled futilely against his captor's rock-solid grip, muttering empty threats. Jacob sighed, and with a wholly unnecessary snap of his fingers forged a tunnel such that the humanoid was hanging in the air in front of him. "I'll just be taking him off your hands, if you don't mind..."

The knight grabbed John around the waist and pulled, adding just a tad extra force than there should have been. Apparently, the goddess' grip had not been quite as tight as he'd made it out to be, and the pair fell over backwards. Springing up and dusting himself off, he glanced over at the no-longer spatially proximate woman to find her staring blankly at the wall, hand still glassed over from her hold on John.

I... must go. The goddess spun about, still not fully aware of her surroundings. She floated gracefully over to the edge of the cliff, not even turning her head to look at the pair she seemed to so despise. As she passed, she waved her hand at the lone exit, and the heavy stone door thudded down, sealing them in. On reaching the pedestal upon which she had stood for who knew how long, the goddess knelt, spreading her wings wide in preparation for flight. Be grateful I have more important business to deal with.

She did not flap her arms as one might expect from her pose; she did not even bother to maintain her feminine guise. She simply shot straight up into the sky; her molten body coalescing into an amorphous comet, feathers spiraling after her in a glittering cyclone of prismatic glass shards. Jacob watched her go with not a hint of regret. "Wow, what a total bitch. Gotta feel sorry for her worshipers. You alright, John?"

"Um." The knight turned to his companion. John was still seated on the ground, cradling his legs in their half-melted ice-casts. "There's a thing I think I might have forgot to mention."

GBCE · 08-05-2010, 05:52 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

Vex’s world and the one you and I are used to vary in many fundamental respects. There are no planets, no stars, no galaxies, not even gravity. There is only “down”, a universal constant pointing towards the infinite sea beneath the buoyant islands that make up the entirety of the land mass. That sea is the domain of Ungol, God of the Mind, and the multicolored fluorescent spheres that dance beneath the surface mirror the similarly spherical crystals spiraling in obscure patterns through the dark half of the sky – the domain of Devari. It would not be strictly correct to define the “sea” and “sky” as actual, physical locations; while that may be true in some ways, events occurring at unusually high or low altitudes tend to be less “real” than those occurring at ground level.

The ground was a long, long way beneath Vex. A swarm of luminous orbs yielded to him in dance as he fell. Looking down, the lights beneath the sea, hazy and distorted, shifted in ways that seemed to mirror the content of his mind in ways he could not explain. He knew, or rather he hoped, that when he was ready these lights would coalesce into something he could understand. Dreams reveal the nature of the mind, after all. For now, he was content to let them swirl pleasantly.

Vex was dimly cognizant of a dragging sensation from his right arm. The physicality of his own body was not something his awareness was currently equipped to deal with, but the insistence of this particular sensation was itching at him to be recognized. He turned his awareness towards its source.

A monstrous mass of black and indigo was revealed through a haze, tentacles thrashing, toothy maws opening in silent screams and consuming themselves endlessly. Vex’s revulsion was stifled by two centuries’ familiarity, which also dampened the impact of the realization that this twisted abomination was lashed to him by similar appendages. In contrast with the lights beneath him, this thing moved in ways excruciatingly foreign to his mind’s contents.

The form of Devari materialized beside him. His voice came from everywhere, calm and collected and speaking their shared native tongue. As he spoke, his long, slender arms casually reached through the haze. “You’ve got a little something there, Vex.” With an unconcernedness contrasting sharply with the gravity of the motion being performed, the hand plucked the retching mass away from Vex and tossed it into the definition-defying aether above.

Vex’s mind suddenly snapped into sharp focus. For the first time in a long while, his quick tongue failed him. “You…did you really just…”

Devari smiled facelessly. “I can’t take him off you for good. But, I’m not going to be so kind as to guide him back to you when we’re done here.”

Vex was pounded by waves of emotion: relief, gratitude, clarity…the recognition of how much of his mind had been devoted to fighting off the effects of Magog was immediate. A figment of Vex’s mind in his shape resolved itself, arm healed and whole. It turned to face the dream god. “Why didn’t you do that before?”

Devari’s towering neck coiled its way around Vex, serpentine. The faceless head stopped inches from his face. “We all have old grudges on you, Vex. They seem less important in your absence. Welcome home.”

Vex shook his head. “Home? Am I really going home?” He paused a moment, his expression growing more concerned. “What has happened to it while I have been gone?”

“Don’t look down,” Devari replied.

Naturally unable to resist, he looked. The swirling colors in the water below arranged themselves neatly into the shape of a daylit balcony reaching out over a verdant valley. Vex stumbled slightly as his feet touched the cobblestone, Devari’s distant chuckle fading away in the emptiness behind him.

Vex felt giddy and apprehensive all at once as he recognized Jabal’s domain. Jabal, Adma Kilu, God of Love. Jabal, whose wife Vex famously seduced prior to his merging with Magog. Vex repressed a smile as he remembered the love god’s reaction upon discovering that Vex had not only foiled yet another of his meticulously planned, jealously guarded, horribly ordered soulmate pairings, but one that Jabal had personally engineered for years to be the perfect mate for him. Vex’s opposition to Jabal’s approach to his station had fueled their rivalry throughout the countless eons, and likely had much to do with Vex’s view of sex and romance. That Devari chose to drop him off here proved that he wasn’t quite as apt to forget “old grudges” as originally stated.

Vex merely smiled and began to think about how he was going to get out of this one. Was he still dreaming? In the domains of the gods in his world, the distinction was largely inconsequential, but could he escape from here into the world below? Did he even need to? His sudden disappearance from the world for the second time might be used to trigger a friendly response from his rival. And there was the other thing…with a sudden rush, he realized he didn’t have to censor the content of his thoughts to starve his emotional parasite any longer.

His son was trying to replace him. The moment he had been whisked away for this abhorrent contest, he had been clambering up the mountainside to the Hall of Gods to prevent this. The infallibility of youth had convinced the man that he could run things better than Vex, the power of chaos geared not towards interfering with Jabal’s particular take on love, but towards death. Death, which his half-divine heritage had postponed beyond the limits of, in his eyes, the tragically-short spans of his friends and loved ones. Death, whose caretaker’s execution of her duties was the only manifestation of order that Vex did not openly defy.

Following the fraction of a second it took Vex to consider these things, he realized he was getting off-track. Deciding that an open and direct approach might serve him best this once, he called out to Jabal.

A pair of luminous eyes suspended in nothingness opened in the courtyard leading to the balcony, followed by another, and another. The form of the Love God blinked into existence shortly thereafter. Barring the host of disembodied eyes floating around his head, continually darting back and forth in search of infidelity, Jabal took the least liberties with his shape. He took the form of a well-dressed and well-built specimen of Binti, the local name of the intelligent inhabitants of this plane. Tall, lanky, four-fingered and –toed, with large low-set eyes and pointed ears sticking straight up.

All pairs of eyes focused on Vex and narrowed slightly. His expression was unreadable, but his stance was defensive. Vex smiled widely and held his arms out to Jabal. “Jabal, I’ve returned.”

“I can see that, obviously,” was his quick reply. His gaze darted in every direction, searching for deception. He settled lower on the tips of his foot-fingers and sighed. “Where have you been?”

Vex did not lose his grin as he nodded to a covered area inset in the mountainside, where several plush seats rested. “It’s quite a tale. Sit with me. I will tell you of it, and then you must tell me of what happened while I was gone.”

The Love God held up his hand in Vex’s direction as the satyr began making his way to the seats. One pair of eyes darted away from him and searched the area surrounding the chairs. “Tell me now,” he answered, sternly.

Vex stopped, looking back and forth from him to the eyes. He chuckled lightly. “Oh, I see.” He held out his hands as if to show he had nothing to hide, and spoke quickly and with no variation in tone. “I was stolen by a powerful being, thrown into a fight to the death with seven other beings from other worlds, and I’ve returned here with the help of Devari and a hallucinogenic drug.”

Jabal frowned and replied in a tone facetiously mirroring Vex’s. “Your kid re-lit your fire in the Hall of Gods, he’s restructuring your domain as we speak.” The eyes searching the seating area returned and he sighed loudly, pinching the bridge of his short nose. “And he’s even worse than you were. What are you doing here, Vex?”

Vex’s complexion blanched where his skin was visible. “I don’t know. Can I stop him?”

“Well, maybe.” He waved a hand in Vex’s direction, speaking mater-of-factly. “I think you’d have to come here in the flesh. So, this fight to the death, does it end?”

“When all but one die.”

“And you go home afterwards?

“Supposedly.”

Jabal nodded slowly. “And the others, are they a threat? Can you win?”

Vex paused a moment to consider his answer. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Jabal replied, “You might want to figure that out.”

The two old gods stared at each other wordlessly for a moment. “I have to go,” Vex said quickly.

Jabal said nothing. Vex reached out with his mind and grasped the invisible threads tying this domain to the others, quickly found the one he was searching for, and pulled. He disappeared with a short blink, leaving Jabal alone on the balcony.

Vex pulled himself into being in the center of a grand cavern, whose floor was a shimmering mass of black hair. Ecstatic moaning came from every direction, and closer scrutiny revealed endless bodies, men and women in twos and threes and fours, some of them made of the ebon strands, and all feverishly coupling with each other. Vex looked longingly out into the pool from a raised dais in the center, as a silken mess of black slithered from the mass in his direction. It coiled around itself, flexible strands shifting into solid forms, splayed out from a central mass. It formed the shape of an unclothed Binti woman, lying comfortably across the ground. Color oozed across the blackness, giving the impression of flesh.

The woman smiled. “Vex,” she called to him. She reached out and touched his right arm gingerly. “It’s good to see you.”

Vex was at a loss for words. The woman was beautiful, always. Even after eons of familiarity. The perfect woman. Lira, Adma Ryli, Death-Goddess.

“You are whole,” she said, her eyes brightening, “Have you come to be with me again?”

“Only in my dreams,” Vex replied. His immortality during his time as a god was due to his link to the Hall of Gods. Death, for him, was impermanent – a visit with Lira, a moment to be one with her, and then, rebirth. This link was not something he shared with Magog, and thus it was something he lost. With the loss of his godhood, the rebirth would no longer come. He would have, at most, one more opportunity to share himself with her in this state, and he was not certain he was ready for it yet.

Lira’s expression darkened. “I have missed you. Where are you? “

“On an island,” he replied, “in another world, in a battle.”

She looked at him with a puzzled expression. “Why? You should be here, Vex. You have to fix this.”

Vex wracked his brain for a moment, recalling the details of the opening speech which now seemed so long ago. “I was taken by entities called The Executive, S, and Talis. They gathered eight beings, myself included, from across several universes to hold a battle to the death. When one dies, we are all taken to a new location. There will only be one left.”

He told her his story, starting from his departure from the Hall of Gods, through the destruction of the Bubble Universe, his deceit with the natives of Firestar, until his arrival at this place. The concern on her face grew when he described the circumstances surrounding his return here, and when he finished, that was the first thing her questions concerned.

“So, your body is still in the temple?”

“I do not know. I believe so.”

“Vex, Nalu must have given you that drug to test you. They likely know you are not who you say.”

Vex’s preoccupation with his current predicament had caused him to disregard his previous one. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Then you have to return! Return, and try to win. I will tell the others of your fate, and we will try to find this Executive and free you. If you win, or if we succeed, then I think we may have found a way to return you to your prior station. Or rather, your son found it, and has used it to take your place as Adma Poki.”

“And I can use this same method to reclaim it from him?”

“Almost certainly, but you must return first!”

Vex paused. “And if I don’t?”

“If you fail… if we fail... well…” She pulled herself closer to Vex, her lips a mere inch from his. “There is always room in my bed for you, Vex.”

A small part of him yearned to close that gap between their lips, but he simply nodded. “One way or another, I’ll see you again.” She nodded in turn, and let go of him as he blinked away to Devari’s domain.

The Dream God was awaiting his arrival, his long fingers steepled in contemplation. Vex held out his hand to him. “I am ready. Take me back.”

“It’s not that easy,” Devari responded. “I’ve been trying to maintain this connection with your mind, but this drug you took is serious. Most of the humans that have taken it were snatched up by their gods and not released. I think I can take you back, but not directly. We will have to return through the domains of the local gods.”

“What does that mean for us?”

“It means we’re either going to have to seek permission or break through. I hope you are on good terms with them…?”

Vex was silent.

An omnidirectional sigh preceded Devari’s response. “We’re breaking through, then.” The long, slender fingers snatched Vex’s consciousness directly out of his figmentary body and tossed it through Devari’s blank, crumbling face.

Devari and Vex materialized atop a helical spire of glowing magma encased in a glistening, glassy shell. Several similar spires rose from the ground around him, casting a red glow over immense globes of obsidian hanging in a network of interconnected tunnels above them. Devari spread his wings and flew upwards effortlessly, directing them towards an open pathway. Upon rising, it became apparent that the ceiling of this place was an upside-down landscape, immense and looming. The landscape seemed to spread out from one central location; a single glowing spire rose from the ground below all the way up to the ceiling, which gave way to it, almost giving the impression that it was draped over it like a tarp.

Vex’s attention was drawn to this indentation. He studied it for a moment, and then recognition brightened his figmentary eyes. “That’s the island. It’s inside-out and upside-down, but I’m sure that’s it.” He stopped and appraised the surrounding ceiling. “We’re beneath the earth, and the roof is ground level.” He considered the parallel between the concept of a volcano and the tube of glowing magma reaching up into the center of the mountain above, but decided that the explanation would be too difficult to translate, especially since the concept of a volcano was foreign to their shared homeworld.

“Then we go up,” Devari responded, as he flapped his wings, ascending through the obsidian spheres. Rising between them, an immense stone face came into view. It was ornately carved and beastly, some kind of cross between a monkey and a jungle cat.

By the time Vex recognized the face from the statues in the temple, its golden eyes had already opened and trained themselves on Devari. Its gargantuan mouth opened, and it bellowed loudly.

“AHUUUU!”

The cry rang out through the entirety of the alien landscape. Dark spheres and hollow tubes and glass spires rang with the reverberating call. It was not a beastly cry, it was a summons—one answered by the world itself. The magmatic stalks directly beneath them shattered, as did the spheres and tunnels. The shower of glittering stone shards condensed into one massive swarm, and the magma contained within coalesced into ascending globules.

Devari took no pause; he flapped his vast wings more frantically, urging the air behind him, flying straight for the highest point in the world. The magnificence of the inverted landscape became apparent with proximity, undeniably massive and whole. What must have been valleys in the ocean floor manifested as large ridges in the ceiling; what were mounds in the mountainside became divots in its surface.

Details in the natural landscape were not the only things to come into view. Vex noted two structures built directly in the mountainside. One, a massive building constructed of gold and stone and gems, with something resembling an inverted gazebo hanging from its lower surface. Vex supposed that this represented the main temple. A second structure, composed of the obsidian and glass of this godly domain, appeared to be more representative of a tunnel passing directly to the surface, somewhere further up the mountain than Vex had climbed. It seemed to be connected to the central magma vein by a small sprout.

Further down the mountainside from that structure were tubes of dirt and rock that seemed to be visibly spreading. Vex took note of their presence, but did not have time to deduce that they might contain the base of another of Sen's world trees. The cloud of planet-stuff was almost upon them.

In flight, the magma had fused into one amorphous mass, and tendrils of flame leapt from its surface. Shards of dark glass and stone drew themselves to it, as a long rope of lava lashed out towards Devari's arm. He withdrew it immediately, but was somewhat surprised as fingers erupted from the end and made a quick grasping motion.

The shape, being hastily formed mid-pursuit, gained a semblance of definition: another arm there, a waist, a head; the fibrous flame migrated to the head and back, giving the impression of long hair. The glassy shards placed themselves around the figure's waist and arms, forming a skirt and wings. Obsidian eyes opened and narrowed in anger.

Devari launched himself towards the larger structure, as the fire-woman's wing broke apart into a string of pointed fragments. Whiplike, it shot out and wrapped itself around Devari's torso, sharp edges digging into his white flesh that crumbled like sand, small flakes whirling down to the ground below.

"Vex?" Asked Devari's voice from the air around him. "Good luck."

With that, he drew his arm back and tossed Vex towards the hanging platform. He rolled and leapt to his feet as the flaming woman crushed Devari's body into a white powder. The rest of him blinked to nothingness as the woman shouted something in a foreign tongue. Tentatively, Vex forced the connection with the woman's mind and extracted a translation: roughly, "Back where you came from, trespasser."

Vex suppressed a smile. The woman twisted around, eyes fixing themselves on him, finally completing her overdue transformation. She would be pretty good-looking if she weren't so angry, Vex decided. She rose to the level of the platform and alighted on it, and was surprised to see that Vex did not cower or flee from her. He merely stood, smiling, head cocked slightly to the side. He looked around, as if bored, and directed his gaze upward. The pillars connecting this platform to the ceiling were rough and naturalistic, and above it was a dark tunnel extending upward.

Disarmed by his nonchalance, the woman decided to try to get a rise out of him. "It's a long way up," she said, snarling.

Vex continued to smile. "Yeah, I guess it is. Can you give me a lift?"

"A lift? No, I won't gi-"

"That's okay," Vex interrupted, shrugging. "I'm a pretty good climber."

"You're not climbing anywhere!" she shouted, and reached out with a spined hand to snatch him up. He reached out his hand as well, offering a handshake.

"I'm Vex," he said, cheerfully. "Unemployed."

She stopped. Her face shifted a few times, as though she couldn't decide whether to be furious or amused.

Vex frowned a little. "Oh, excuse me. I guess this isn't one of your customs. I'm with this group of beings, they do this thing..." He counted off on his fingers as he listed the events comprising the custom in question. "Grab hands, shake them, say your name, say what you do for a living."

"I am Ahu, Earth-goddess! You're in my domain! You've lied to my people, another of your fellows has desecrated my temple, you nearly ruined one of Malabog's virgins! You told my people you are a god! Why are you here?" She responded, clearly getting a bit exasperated.

"Oh yeah," replied Vex, "Sorry about that. You see, there's a perfectly good explanation for all of this."

He did not continue, much to Ahu's increasing annoyance. "And that would be?"

"Well, this...uh, being brought us all here to fight to the death. He lied to your shaman and told her we were all here to end the world, so they'd want to kill us. They were supposed to be..." he shrugged and waved his hand as if searching for the proper term, "...obstacles, I suppose? You know, we'd fight each other, they'd chase us around a little, we'd go back to fighting again. Keep things interesting. The last place didn't really have anything like that, so I appreciate the variety."

Ahu's shoulders slumped, and her eyes darted back and forth across Vex's face. "The...last place?"

"Yeah. For some reason it's set up so that when one of us dies, we all get taken to another location. Anyway, I thought I could tell them a few lies so they wouldn't want to kill us anymore, and honestly that worked out pretty good for them too, because one of us might have taken a few-"

Ahu held up a hand. "Wait, stop blathering. So you're saying I only have to kill one of you, and the rest will go somewhere else?"

Vex paused. "I suppose you could think of it that way, but it's really supposed to be us who do the-"

"Great," Ahu interrupted, her face splitting open into a wicked smile. "I'll start with you!"

The stone feathers on her arms split off into a spiked chain with one swift motion, which she flung with immense force directly towards the center of Vex's torso.

A loud cracking sound accompanied the whip striking the stone of the platform on the opposite side. Vex smiled, the chain apparently embedded in his chest, but leaving no wound. With an angry shriek, Ahu dashed forward and grabbed for him, hoping to finish the job.

Her hand passed through.

"Did I mention," Vex began, his illusory smile shifting more into a smirk, "that I'm a pretty good climber?"

Ahu's eye twitched in rage, her mouth forming a furious snarl. Her eyes shot upwards, just in time to see a patch of stone in the tunnel up to the real world shimmer. There, right at the top, multiple hands holding onto the rough stone sides, was Vex. He smiled and waved down at Ahu, whose face contorted into a visage of pure hate.

"You know," Vex called down from atop the tunnel, "You'd be pretty good-looking if you weren't so angry all the time."

A vicious ball of flaming rage shot up the tube as Vex casually finished his ascent.

Mohea and Nalu, being the two women with the most invested in the events that led to Vex's uncovering as a false god, were two of the four women tasked with carrying his body to the top of the volcano to offer to the Gods. After the unfortunate incident with Nalu's contact with his cursed arm, they had managed to tie his limbs to a long post to haul him by, two women to a side.

In addition to her own embarrassment and inner turmoil, Mohea was keeping a close watch on Nalu. Her demeanor had shifted radically since the bedroom rendezvous--or was it since she touched Vexmagog's arm? Her skin tone seemed to have paled considerably, and she thought she could detect a hint of dark rings under her eyes. She carried the writhing, mumbling body with an expression of part contempt, part determination. Her eyes seemed to be darting down to that mess of indigo frequently, and, a bit after the start of their trip, she was the first to notice the change.

"Hey," she said, "His arm stopped glowing."

A quick inspection revealed that she was correct. The purple, swirling incandescence between the cracks in black stone had uniformly solidified into a stony mass. The incident was noted, but not thoroughly investigated. That would prove unfortunate for them, because if they had dared touch it, they would have discovered that it was no longer dangerous, it was quite brittle and easily removed, and that removal of the stone would cause the arm underneath to be small enough to escape from the restraints. This cursory examination was not performed, and these facts were not uncovered.

Almost to the top, Vex's mumbling ceased, timed conspicuously with a rumble in the earth. His blue eyes blinked, and he made a quick examination of his surroundings. He yawned. The women stopped in their tracks.

"Good morning, ladies," he said, sleepily. "Where are we headed?"

By the time the volcano erupted, the women were chasing him down the mountainside as he cackled gleefully.

Not The Author · 08-11-2010, 05:10 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.

"You broke your legs."

"Mm-hm."

The pair had retreated to the antechamber to escape the sheer heat of the caldera.

"Both of them."

"Mm-hm."

Both doors leading out of the chamber had been sealed by the goddess, though these were easily bypassed with a bit of magic.

"Last round."

"Mm-hm."

The pedestal in the center of the room had been toppled at some point, littering the floor with powdery ash.

"And you didn't tell anyone."

"Mm-mm."

The stone slab was chipped in places, and the chamber walls bore signs of charring.

"You then tried to fight a bunch of Amazons."

"Mm-hm."

John was once again seated upon the slab, staring at his legs.

"While your powers weren't working."

"Weren't working well. 'S different."

Despite the move to a cooler locale, his icy splints still riddled the crystalline floor with quickly-evaporating droplets.

"Uh-huh. Then you followed me into a volcano."

"Mm-hm."

Jacob had discarded his sphere of magma earlier, as the drain on his mana reserves was becoming a nuisance.

"Where you decided to fight a fire goddess."

"She looked like she was gonna kill you, okay? I was defending you!"

He leaned against the wall, one hand clasped to his brow in exasperation.

"Fine. I still can't figure why you thought it was a good idea."

"Man, you suck the fun out of everything."

A sigh, and the hand swung out, encompassing the room and its general state of disarray. "What happened in here, anyway?"

"Okay, so I was lying down here, right? And then you left but there was this weird song going around in my head. And sometimes I think out loud, right? Well I was trying to get the song out of my head, okay, and then the pillar burst into flame! Well, the ashes in it did, anyway. Like a torch. Anyway! I kinda tried to blow it out 'cause the room was already too hot, but that didn't work out and the flame kinda turned into a hand and grabbed at me. I tried to freeze it, which kinda worked? But then it was hot and also sharp and still trying to grab me, and I might've panicked a little and, uh..."

The cryomancer shrugged. "...Stuff happened. But I'm fine, really! Well, aside from the legs."

Jacob would likely have made some further condescending remark, but was distracted when the room suddenly decided to start vibrating.

"What's going on?"

"I don't..." The tremors persisted and intensified, accompanied by a rise in temperature. "Ah. Right. Volcano. Shit."

It took him only a few seconds and a couple of tries to tunnel to the volcano's surface. He stepped through the portal, and likely would have kept going had he not recalled one important fact.

"Um..."

Jacob turned back. "...Oh, right. Legs." Force of habit made him throw up an arm as though flinging something over his head. "There. Quarter weight. Push off, you'll sail through; should be easier to walk, too. Now come on!"

The knight was not a man to be kept waiting, particularly not when he was being made to wait on an active, erupting volcano. As such, he left rather hastily, more concerned with his own well-being that that of the diminutive humanoid.

The humanoid in question was not feeling very well. Typically, John's latent cryonic powers automatically corrected for upward changes in environmental temperature, but ever since he'd entered the caldera he'd been having trouble maintaining equilibrium. The abnormally extreme heat, coupled with his sudden weight loss and possibly some of the toxic gasses leaking through recent fissures in the floor, made him feel somewhat light-headed and nauseous. In an attempt to avoid being ill, he pushed himself from the altar less forcibly than he should have, and while he did travel considerably farther than he would have otherwise, he landed just short of the portal leading to his freedom.

I say landed, but by the time Jacob had left his soles were starting to melt, and the floor had only grown hotter since. Almost immediately upon contact with the superheated crystal, John's shoe burst into flames. Naturally, this caused the cryomancer some alarm, and as is typical of one traversing a hot surface or encountering a surprise, took a little hop. Unfortunately, the loss of three-quarters of his natural tether to the earth translated into making such a hop rise several feet above the exit portal and last several seconds longer than would be considered normal.

In his frantic attempts to extinguish his foot and somehow fall more quickly, John failed to realize the floor below him had given way to the incredible buildup of pressure, until a large chunk of crystal jumped up and broke his spine.

GBCE · 08-13-2010, 06:23 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Korbz.

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**Schazer** · 08-13-2010, 06:58 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

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GBCE · 08-13-2010, 06:16 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Korbz.

SpoilerShow

Sruixan · 08-14-2010, 07:13 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Sruixan.

Through a dimly lit doorway in an abandoned corner of the room there appeared a cloaked figure, his head kept well down. Though he seemed to be shuffling slightly, he covered the immeasurable distance between the door and the centrepiece of the room with surprising speed.

His destination was an ostensibly impromptu rig of devices positioned in the middle of the otherwise empty space. They were arranged in an arc so that one could immerse oneself in them fully, with the view of the room’s sole window blocked by the assorted apparatus. Not that the view was particularly distracting; not unless you knew quite what you were looking at.

In amongst the monitors and instruments, settled in a plush office chair, S was fiddling with the dials of an anarchic contraption, grumbling as he did so. Upon hearing the footsteps behind him, he swivelled round.

“Did you get a connection?”

“Not quite, I’m afraid. The bastard had left by the time I’d figured out where the hell he was. The Executive was most displeased.”

“Bugger. I’m going to have to have a word with him, aren’t I?”

“Depends. Are you talking about Vex or the boss?”

With his head in his hands, the gentleman considered this for a moment.

“Both, I should think. Once someone gets round to dying, I’ve gotta go and see the latter anyway… oh, and by the way. You’ve got mail.”

Despite it being something of a non-sequitur, it was an earnest statement. On a recently cleared corner of the desk, there sat what was undoubtedly an sincere attempt at an envelope; crisp white with a neat blue label right placed precisely in the middle. The sender had neglected to dabble in the art of adding stamps, but that hadn’t exactly stopped the message from reaching its intended recipient, a point that Sruix was keen to pursue.

“I’m pretty sure we didn’t use to have a letterbox in the atrium door, but it was there when I passed it not two hours ago. This thing was sitting on a doormat just below it. Heck, before that I’m positive we didn’t have a doormat either. What would either of us need from a doormat?”

“It’s the Organiser’s doing. It has to be. He said he was going to send me a letter and I guess he wanted to take the process seriously.”

“Well, I guessed that much. It was obvious who the author was the moment I picked it up.”

“What led you to that conclusion?”

“Well, for one thing, he’s written all your names on the label. All of them.”

“…I thought he said he was going to write porten- oh. But of course. That’s exactly what he would do, isn’t it?”

”Also, there’s only one fool I know of who chooses to write in lilac ink on blue paper.”

Talis sighed. “He does try. You can’t blame him for tr- hang on. You’ve opened it, haven’t you?”

This remark was cause enough for Sruix to chuck the envelope at his colleague, who couldn’t really be bothered to go out of his way to catch it.

“I’m not very good with this evil malarkey, am I?”

“Well, you could be much better at it if you put a little effort into it. If you could just watch your words a little more and not give yourself away quite so easily…”

Before the squabble could descend much lower into the depths of petty insults, a brief burst of static intervened. Something wonderful had just happened.

On an antiquated fascia below the many monitors that lined the observation deck, there were now six lights, of red or green or blue, flickering away like candle flames. Until a few moments prior, there had been seven.

“Finally. We at last get to show these morosophs the error of their ways.”

This statement prompted a small chuckle from Talis. “That’s a new word for you. Why, that makes, what, maybe a whole hundred you’ve added to your vocabulary in order to sound more like an omnipotent orchestrating prick.”

”Shut it.”

-~-~-~-~-~-~

From paradise blown to infinite black and then to black again; it must have taken a mere second to pluck the contestants from the island and deposit them elsewhere. That second was all it took to crush whatever hopes of a peaceful resolution to the matter anyone might have been foolish enough to consider holding dear. Once more, they were at the mercy of the Gentlemen.

The six survivors each stood in their own spotlight, in a manner not dissimilar to their entrance into the battle in the far-flung past. This time, they were arranged in a perfect hexagon, with one contestant placed in each corner. It was too dark to make out quite where they were standing, but the floor appeared to be well-trodden rubber, despite lacking much in the way of a smell.

A seventh light flickered on in the middle of the arrangement, revealing the duo the contestants so despised. Both wore immaculate grins, though Sruix had let his hair down to obscure his face as per his last two appearances. With this extra light, it was now apparent that every contestant was in their own cell; each occupied a vast hexagonal chamber with walls of glass separating them from both their counterparts and their masters.

“Well, I say. That was quite the death, methinks. I’d have honestly preferred to see one of you guys off him, but there’s no denying that that was simply marvellous. It’s a great pity that most of you didn’t get to see it!”

Sruix had started to clap.

“Oh Vex, you fiend. What a lovely idea you had; an island utopia, where nothing could possibly go wrong. I would dearly have loved to have seen you try a little harder there; maybe things might have turned out alright… oh, but I jest. I think you might have not quite realised what you were trying to do there. See, I’d like to have a word with you all now about a matter I assure you to be extremely important to your continued existence.”

Shortly before he uttered the last word he saw fit to nudge Talis, who merely rolled his eyes at the gesture. Such apathy was short-lived as he adopted a more serious look.

“We received… a complaint. Well, two actually, but for some reason “two complaints” doesn’t have quite as much impact as the singular. The first comes from the very man who has organised this affair, the proprietor of this altercation and the being with the most interest in seeing you scuffle. He is not, I think you’ll find, a man you want to get on the wrong side of and yet it appears that your antics have indeed upset him. Can you guess why?”

In an attempt to imitate cause and effect, Talis snapped his fingers. A little before that, though, the lights flashed on, ruining the illusion entirely. Not that any of the contestants really cared. Those who could were too busy regarding their surroundings in awe.

Outside their prisons, everything gleamed. Their surroundings reeked of the epitome of luxury very surface seemed to have been highly polished, even those that couldn’t possibly have been. Walkways linked each cell to a balcony that encircled them a reasonable distance away, dotted with planters lined with exotic flora. Everything appeared to be made of the most magnificent material that was suitable – brass handrails, marble floors, golden lamps and statues. Six passages continued off the circular space like spokes on a wheel, with glimpses of fountains visible down each of their lengths. But then, beyond the veil of opulence, the walls on the other side of the balcony were in fact shop fronts, albeit the lavish ones of up-market retailers. It seemed that the contestants were standing in the middle of an opulent shopping mall, albeit one devoid of life.

“Each of you stands in one of the many elevators that service the upper shopping district of Aquarius Major, capital of the archipelago nation Nubium. The elevator network here is rather clever; there are six shafts with multiple elevators in each serving six floors a piece, plus one drop-shaft that serves just the top and bottom floors, allowing a patron to travel from any floor to any another in a maximum of three journeys. Not bad when you consider that there are 175 floors, huh?”

With a notable clang, the elevators began to descend. Floor after floor of the same luxury passed the contestants by, each indistinguishable from the previous.

“Now, Talis has asked me not to bore you all with the history, but to be honest it is a little boring anyway. It’s the old story about a down-on-his-luck entrepreneur getting the killer idea over a bottle of booze one day, an idea that could solve the government’s biggest problem, gets his vision realised, becomes a very rich man, lives fast, dies young, gets a lasting legacy blah de blah.”

“Before he becomes unstoppable force, it might be wise to note that you will soon experience a rather curious sensation, comparable perhaps to body-wide pins and needles. You’ll see why.”

“Thank you for the interruption there.”

“My pleasure entirely.”

Rather than continue with his monologue, Sruix steepled his fingers.

“Actually, you were rather timely. I believe it is about to occur.”

Had anyone been capable of counting the rapidly passing floors, they might have noticed that the total was getting awfully close to the cited number, yet the elevator showed no signs of showing down. The balconies gave way to a view of a sprawling plaza that undercut the upper floors, but it too passed in the blink of an eye.

Everything abruptly turned a hazy shade of grey, accompanied by a feeling comparable to body-wide pins and needles. The Gentlemen were showing admirable disregard for the laws of physics. Or floors. Or internal infrastructure. Or ceilings too, for that matter.

The landings were a little less luxurious now, with dappled and pastel shades replacing the earlier golds and bronzes. Each blurred into the next and so their features weren’t really distinguishable, but the shop fronts were definitely gone and so were most of the trimmings that had added to the grandeur.

“Yes, there’s more. But no, I know what you’re thinking – basement residences. Pfft. Something so passé wouldn’t exactly have netted our man fame and fortune. Time to reveal the twist.”

”The big problem an island nation has is understandably space – if a nation undergoes a population boom, you need land to house them, land on which to produce the food that feeds them and so on. This island chain just so happened to be the best stopping point between two continents once upon a time, when the air was unconquered and a big boat was your best bet for getting from A to B. Consequently, this place got pretty overcrowded and building up wasn’t an art this civilisation had yet to perfect. They tried though, but it took an alcoholic to solve the problem by turning it on its head.”

“Aquarius Major is 400 floors of building below ground. Heck, it’s entirely below sea level. It’s an underwater city, carved out of the island. There’s an awful lot of space in a big rock like this. I stopped counting the populace at five million and the square footage when it hit ten digits.”

At last, the elevators slowed, crawling the last few feet so as to allow the six to get a good look at the atrium. Countless passages led away from the elevators, some labelled as stations for public transport, others as residential or industrial sectors. Each warren seemed to continue on for a brief while, then turn off, up or down, left or right. There was a labyrinth behind the carved-out walls that presumably stretched throughout the entire island and beyond.

“You are here for one reason and one reason only. We plucked you from your own pinprick of reality and brought you all together so that you could fight. This battle was instigated for the entertainment of beings more powerful that yourselves; some might say greater, but I suspect you all would have a qualm or two with that. You might also dislike the idea of being enslaved to this fate, reduced to mere pawns in a game played for the amusement of others; a game with genuine stakes. But you can’t do a thing about it.”

“Do you know why we’ve brought you here? There are three reasons: the first is merely a little piece of trivia that might just be worth noting.”

With a flourish, Sruix pointed at a point somewhere between Jacob and Steven, beyond the confines of the elevators and presumably even the gateway space.

“1217 miles in that direction, give or take a little perhaps, sprawled between two headland peaks, is the seaside town of Cydonia. 40 miles north of that is a much larger city, the capital of the nation, I’ll have you know. Both of those locations have something special in common; until recently, they were the respective homes of two men, the names of whom are not important. Now, however, they are two more pawns, tangled up in situations similar to yours. One of them, bless him, has gotten rather far, but that is not the point. The point is, people, that you are part of a widespread tradition and that your strife is but one of many. In the numerous iterations, there have of course been attempts to usurp those in charge, to break the game and free themselves and their comrades.”

The lights dimmed once more and for a few moments the combatants were alone in the darkness. As they flashed on once more, they found themselves standing on a station platform, with no sign of the elevators they had previously been standing in. The area was enclosed in a manner similar to a subway station, with the only access a flight of stairs on the other side of the tracks. It appeared to be the end of the line, with the lines stretching off into the distance one way only.

“Blergh, my timing’s all out. I do apologise.”

“It’s quite alright. The train won’t be here for a while yet, I take it?”

“Three minutes.”

Behind the façade of hair, Sruix’s grin appeared again.

“Where was I? Ah yes, the futility of escape, for you see, in the myriad of battles held throughout the whole and space of time, nobody has ever succeeded in defeating a grandmaster or derailing a battle. It cannot be done. It appears that you either do not realise or do not respect the strength of your superiors or the jurisdiction we have over you. So then, reason number two for bringing you here; to try to make you understand.”

“Everything you have seen so far and all that you are about to see has been carefully crafted; whole worlds have been created, the first for you alone to destroy as you saw fit, the second as a favour for another that we then adapted and here, the third world, to house an entire civilisation. The society that created this frivolous settlement was let loose upon this ball of rock to build for themselves such monuments, to take the crazed daydreams of the maddest of men and turn them into reality. But why? Let us look at this from another angle. More specifically, the angle of my good friend here…”

“You all must, at one point or another, have had at least one of those little whims, the ones that are a little leftfield and probably not at all wise. You know the type; those innocent “what if?” ideas that are good for a laugh. Sometimes you come out the other end feeling a little guilty and regretting you even thought of them in the first place.”

In the grey distance, a subtle rumbling sound began to creep towards the platform.

“Do you know what happens when a god gets one of those whims? This.”

The tunnel’s lights flickered and for a few moments the faint auras of headlights could be seen painting the walls.

“This is our playground. Well, it’s mine technically, but Talis was responsible for it all making sense. The eccentricity that is an underwater city was an idea I personally envisaged and then went about creating. Ideas were planted into the heads of those most fitting and though I must admit it was not my hands that built this, it was my will that made what I desired reality. I might, if you like, take you to some other examples sometime; I could rattle off a list, but we have a train to catch. If you think that’s quite a hollow statement, then I assure you; you’ve seen adequate proof that there is basis for me to brag. But regardless, I should say this; you’ve seen what we can do to a world. Now think what we could do to you.”

“Reason number three; we don’t want to have to intervene. We want you guys to do what you are here to do; we want you to fight. We don’t want to have to make you to do that; forced combat is nowhere near as entertaining, I would say, as freeform conflict. But there are of course limits, and you are beginning to test them. Peaceful resolutions and escapist whimsies are intolerable. We could naturally make your lives living hells, torturing you, perhaps, to force your co-operation, but where would be the fun in that? So we have brought you here to give you one last chance by providing you with a backdrop that will doubtless provide manifold opportunities for you to carry out your duties in a manner most amusing.”

On that note, a unremarkable train pulled into the station. The frozen contestants found themselves boarding it without quite willing themselves to do so. Once all were onboard, it set off again in the direction from which it had come.

“I do apologise once more for the long-winded manner with which we are shipping you to your arena, but we figured we had quite a lot to talk about and so it was better off not having you all distracted. Whilst we are in transit, I do believe I have yet to tell you about the second complaint. It is directed at you alone, Vex, and is a collective objection from many a soul with interest in you and this battle. It is quite simple.”

From an inside pocket, S procured a folded sheet of paper. Opening it to himself, he made sure he had Vex’s attention and then flashed it at him. No one else saw the words that had been typed onto it bar the demigod, who recoiled for a split-second before regaining his composure.

“Now that’s all out of the way, I think we oughta tell you where we’re going, yes?”

The train changed direction all of a sudden, deviating from its previously straight course to head off at an angle, but also descending further into the rock.

“We are heading to the primary research facility of Oxbow Inc., a conglomerate corporation of research groups, originally involved in figuring out the science behind an undersea community. Naturally, it’s come by an awful lot of money over the years and it keeps dishing out the goods, so to speak, so profit keeps coming its way. It diversified as well into other areas of research, all of which were water based, I do believe, and so eventually it was deemed necessary to have a much larger facility than what they’d used previously. So two of the old tunnelling machines were brought out of retirement and programmed to produce-“

The sought-after explanation was unexpectedly interrupted by a repeated series of beeps emanating from another of S’s pockets. With a curiously concerned look on his face, he retrieved a miniscule device, presumably a meter of some description.

“Bugger. We don’t appear to be able to time anything right today. Forj ‘s little surprise has arrived a tad earlier than I’d anticipated.”

For a few seconds none of the contestants could quite comprehend what that meant. Well, all bar one, who could feel that fuzziness seeping into his stomach again. As the pain sharpened, the whole carriage shook slightly and the crescendo of a peculiar sound, perhaps the crackling of a flame, began.

Before anyone could look too bemused, the entity that was previously Wolf appeared to fold in on itself, or maybe it was evaporating, or exploding, or something different entirely. Certainly there was a wolf there one moment and a curiously two-dimensional shape there the next; a dark brown slice of something floating in midair.

Then it exploded.

By the time the searing light had diminished enough for shapes to be distinguishable once more, it was quite apparent that Wolf had seized to exist. Most of him, anyway. For some inexplicable reason, some indiscernible organ of his was lying on the floor, just sitting there at the feet of… well, it was a she. The sort of she that, had they not been rendered motionless by the Gentlemen, most of the contestants would have been agape at. They were certainly pretty stunned, irrespective of their ability to show so. Entities that unexpectedly materialised from out of nothing generally never bothered with clothes.

With his teeth tightly clenched, Talis proffered a brown paper parcel that had previously been sitting inconspicuously on a seat.

“I am supposed to pass this on to you. I’d say we would all turn round to let you preserve your decency, but, well, I’d be amazed if there was any of it left…”

The lights were dimmed regardless to offer some sort of privacy. Iris nodded in thanks and tore back the packaging to reveal a long black dress, the uncovering of which briefly raised her eyebrows. Out of courtesy alone she turned around, somewhat oblivious to the frozen state of her compatriots, and clothed herself as rapidly as she could.

“There, much better. Now men, this is Iris, I believe. It appears that our lupine friend was storing something of a surprise that I’m afraid we were only made aware of after it was too late to do anything about her. Too late to get much of a resume, either. I believe she has some summoning abilities and a little medicinal prowess. I am also reliably informed that she and Vex are going to get on like a house on fir- ah. We have arrived.”

With his patience worn so thin, Talis didn’t bother to walk the contestants out of the train. Instead, there was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it transition between the generic carriage interior and… and…

…well, it was big. Very, very big. Very much the sort of big that was best measured in hundreds of whatever unit you so desired. Putting superlatives to one side, it was best described as a squashed sphere, reminiscent perhaps of the Bubble from the first round, but by no means the same. The contestants stood on a balcony, a circular protrusion from a terrace that stretched all the way around the facility, as far as one could tell. There were about a dozen terraces that had been hewn out of the bedrock, stacked one above the other like paddies on a hillside, creating the effect of the space being a coliseum, each terrace a row of seating with the floor far below.

The edges of each terrace were difficult to define – it was tricky to say they were there at all. Buildings sprawled between layers, tanks and pipes crossed multiple floors and there were many extensions jutting over the lower layers to provide extra space for their sector, just like the ones the combatants were standing on now. There were also countless doors in the terrace walls, some human-sized, others built to allow unseen machinery to pass through, implying the presence a network of rooms behind them, just like in the atrium. The race responsible for this madness, it seemed, were incapable of wasting space.

But then, once you’d accounted for the hodgepodge that covered the floors, you looked up. And up. And up.

The ceiling was not much of a ceiling at all – rather, it was an enormous glass dome, stretching right across the whole span of the laboratory, through which the contestants had a view of the hundreds of metres of sea that were above their heads. The water was not totally clear and so the sky remained obscured, but with a little squinting the glimmers and flickers of shoals were distinguishable in the deep blue. The rigs and beams that straddled the dome from which lights and sprinklers were hung, were mere specks of dust against it and detracted little from the experience.

“I told you it was large. Have fun wrecking the place. Oh, and here’s a modicum of friendly advice; we’re about 800 fathoms down, so keep Sen away from the Hydroponics department. It’s sector Q17, I think you’ll find. Goodbye!”

And with that, the contestants were ensnared in the carrier orbs that were beginning to become familiar and split apart. As they floated away, Sruix turned to Talis and exposed his mischievous grin.

“Don’t bother closing up the passageway ‘twixt here and the platform. I can see where this is going and I dare say keeping things open might make for quite the climax, if they choose to co-operate with us this time…”

“Of course it’s going to be spectacular. That message will only serve to guarantee he won’t stop trying.”

“Quite the design of it.”

He retrieved the note from his pocket once more.

We know what you did back there. Don’t push your luck, mate.

Dragon Fogel · 08-15-2010, 07:23 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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GBCE · 08-16-2010, 04:22 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Korbz.

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GBCE · 08-16-2010, 11:36 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

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Vex sifted through the seemingly-simple contents of the note he was shown, as well as a few other tidbits of information the man had let slip. His bubble shot off to nearly the very opposite end of the circle from their starting position, its destination very near the glass wall.

There are other battles like this one. Were they all the same, eight individuals like me, plucked out of whatever they were doing before? Many had attempted to escape in the past, and all had failed. But did those attempts warrant an individual consultation? And the note itself, We know what you did back there... what I did? What I did was get drugged against my will. There really is no reason to deliver such a missive except to intimidate me into stopping what I've already set in motion... an act that would be completely unnecessary if he had as little to fear from my attempts as he tried to indicate.

No, Executive, this note tells me one thing: you are scared of me. If you weren't, if you thought the gods of my realm could do nothing to stop you, such a note would be unnecessary. You wouldn't be trying to frighten me, to place blame in my hands for an act forced upon me by someone else, you would be secure in your seat of power. Don't push your luck? That's it then, I am lucky. My situation is unique in some way that may prove threatening to this contest in the future, in a way that no other contest has been threatened before.

The bubble popped and Vex touched ground lightly. I am an instrument of chaos, poised to destroy something thought indestructible. His eyes wandered upward, as he briefly mused on the inevitability of that glass ceiling coming down at some point in the immediate future. A smile spread slowly over his face.

Security specialist. That's what Krad's nametag, pinned awkwardly on the sash across his shoulders, said. Special-ist. His wide mouth grinned, the edges of it peeking out the sides of his extremely bulbous nose. He was the special-est security Yagg ever, he reasoned, because he got to watch over the new nests being built. Multitudes of utilitarian construction equipment, stacks of metal and stone, a skeleton of steel beams and girders, and a swarm of metal men keeping busy at all hours were his domain. Sure, these bug-things and lizard-things weren't using this nest very well... he'd never seen them have any kids in there, after all. Maybe they were still kids themselves, not big enough to make kids of their own yet. They certainly were much smaller than Krad, and they liked to put on funny white coats and play with shiny stuff in their nests. That must be it, Krad concluded, they're still kids. I like kids. His job was to make sure these kids built their nests and played with their toys without anyone coming in to mess with them.

Not that anyone ever tried, no... but surely, Krad thought, that was because Krad was doing such a good job being intimidating. "Stand there," Lizard Boss Guy had told him, "and look intimidating. If someone's not supposed to be here, hit them over the head with this. And if we tell you to go somewhere else with this, do that instead, okay?" Krad recalled the conversation prior to his first shift being a security specialist, and glanced down at the walkie-talkie pinned to his sash. It really was a nice walkie-talkie, and it really was a nice sash, and it really was a nice head-hitter. This was a good job.

"Hey mister," cooed a small, feminine voice from behind him. He spun around, head-hitter at the ready, and confronted... a little Yagg, looking very scared. Krad wavered a moment, because she was certainly not supposed to be there, but he also didn't want to hit her over the head. He slumped a little.

"Hello," he said. "You should not be by this nest."

"I'm lost," she replied, "Can you help me find somebody? He is supposed to take care of me."

Krad grew furious. What kind of monster would leave this child unattended? "Who is your friend?" he asked.

"He is your boss," she replied.

Krad looked confused. "Lizard-man-boss or camera-guy-boss or little-pink-boss?"

A moment passed in silence, while the little Yagg thought about the question. "What does camera-guy-boss do?" she asked.

"He watches the cameras and tells me where to go," Krad replied.

"That's him. That's what he does."

Krad decided he would have a word with camera-guy-boss after his shift. The nerve of that fragile little bird person, leaving this innocent child unattended. Maybe this wasn't a good job, after all. Still, he wasn't supposed to leave his station. He pointed towards the center of the circle. "Camera-guy-boss is way down from there. There are stairs, they are by the big thing that looks like a metal fish. Go down them a lot."

The little Yagg thanked him and walked off in the direction he indicated, careful to keep a safe distance away from the uncompleted building.

Krad felt very good about helping the little Yagg. Krad liked kids.

Vex was careful to keep the connection with Krad's mind until he got out of his line of sight. It was second nature to him by now. He tried to stay hidden as he proceeded purposefully towards a large, oblong, brushed-steel tank with support beams splayed out beneath it. They almost looked like a fish's fins.

GBCE · 08-17-2010, 11:18 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

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Iris' bubble touched down on a large container overlooking much of the area. Her body slumped to her knees as soon as the force covering her let up. She remained still as she looked over the arena.

"There are more lives here again. How many will die?"

In Wolf's place, she had to win. He couldn't return to the spirit realm of their universe if she died here. He was still with her, in a sense. She looked at the organ in her hand. It used to be his stomach, before his existance had ceased. She gripped it with both hands and ripped it open, spilling stomach juices over the tank. He had been sick during the game, so there was no remains of food left. However, there were two foreign objects that had fallen out. The reasons for his pain. One of a slate knife, the one she had owned when she was alive, the one she had recieved when she came of age. The other was her old medicine pouch. She undid the string around it and peeked inside. The waterproof leather had kept the roots, powders and other substances dry. She recognised them all instantly. She always carried such things when she had lived. She reached in and rubbed out some earthblood. Spitting on her palm, she mixed it into a sludge with her finger. She dabbed it onto her face in a war paint style. She also added the marks for those about to die onto her forhead, a circle within a circle, lines guiding it upwards. She tied her pouch and slid it over her shoulder, It was large enough to fit snugly above her waist. She looked over her knife next. Her world did not farm metels, so stone and slate made most of their tools. Slate was a lot harder though, so knives such as hers were sharp and durable. Wires of cloth crisscrossed her biceps, part of the design of the dress, so she slid it around her left arm, and made sure she could draw it quickly without cutting herself. Satisfied, she overlooked the new zone.

She couldn't see any of the other contestants, so she decided to drop to the lower parts so that she didn't stand out so much. Well, she stood out anyway. Long silver hair, black dress with a knife showing against her arm. She decided to keep out of sight of the inhabitants of the dome. She casually stepped off of the container into freefall. She fell two stories to the next floor and landed easily. She felt satisfied that the strength she had gained from living in the demon world for four hundred years was still with her. She wondered if her native powers from her old life were still floating around in her head.

She'd have to test it out.

She leapt from the building and made her way across rooftops, always perring around to make sure no passer by could catch her.

'They expect me to get on with Vex. Wonder what gave them that idea. I ate one god before, perhaps I could do it again. That furball smells though, and he's not my type.

Hopefully he doesn't think that about me'

**Schazer** · 08-17-2010, 01:26 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

If Sen hadn't been subjected to the routine paralysis during their transition from tropical island to undersea lab, perhaps he would've been a lot less savagely inconsolable than he was when his feet finally hit rock bottom, dropped off at the lowest, central point in the base.

The first thing the Tender did was let a long shudder pass down its entire form, culminating in a piercing scream. Sen charged about, tail-pod flailing at anything breakable (which, for the enraged beast, was sorely lacking in this industrial zone), talons smacking out, punching through windowglass and upending anything not nailed down. The Tender was, insofar as he was able, throwing a tantrum to rival the most petulant child. The reasons behind this completely irrational behaviour were complex - perhaps complex enough that they'd scrambled whatever qualified for a brain in the Tender and forced it into overdrive while it got its priorities sorted out.

Had Sen been able to rationalise his thoughts (though to be fair if that were possible the Tender would not have been gallumphing its noisy, destructive way around the construction site) they might've gone something like this.

One seed lost was tolerable. Inevitable, perhaps, even - that was surely the point of carrying multiple pods. A safeguard, to best ensure the investment which was the World Tree in Sen would in the end bear out. Sen could even tell that the World Tree in the Bubble Universe was doomed. It didn't make being torn from it any easier, but he could acknowledge in his botanic way that inevitability, and perhaps even contemplate for a moment on the concept of luck, and how it applied to him suddenly being in far more favourable climes.

This shift, previously a blessing, had just callously wrenched the creature from what should've been its resounding victory. Firestar was consigned to be the throne of a behemoth tree, whose roots would cross oceans and eventually strangle the planet. Sen had won, so much as it was possible for an organism to 'win' at a task as fundamentally biological as propogation of the species - he'd already envisioned the oceans, encroached as they were by sprawling roots, bathed in the amber dust of World Tree pollen. That Tree probably didn't need Sen's help.

But now, gods-knew how many galaxies or even dimensions away, as far as Sen was concerned there was a volcano with no guarantee that his efforts hadn't been wasted - and that assured victory soured into uncertainty was eating the Tender up. The disturbing lack of sunlight, too, wasn't alleviating the green beast's mood. He screeched a little louder and kicked over a stack of girders.

GBCE · 08-19-2010, 01:48 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by redskap.

Blitz was carried across the…city? Could you call it that? There were certainly enough buildings and constructions to deem it as such. Although the bubble continued restraining his movement as it flew towards its as-yet-unknown destination, the young man’s mind could still function. And function it did.

He tried to digest what the instigators of this mad competition had said to them. We should be fighting each other, not working together. That’s why we’re here. But why should we have to listen to them? The bubble dropped him on one of the upper rings directly across from the place where they came in. He looked around, getting some idea of his immediate surroundings, then sat on his haunches, closing his eyes. Perhaps not the brightest idea in a fight to the death, but he needed to think about something, and closing his eyes always helped move things along faster.

They’re omniscient. Or so they want us to believe. And even if they’re not, they must be somewhere close for them to be able to control us so easily. But they lectured us about our actions. Talked to us like children who had done wrong. Done something that their parents didn’t approve of. Their reason for telling us that we must fight each other of our own will is that it’s more “entertaining”. What if they’re lying? What if they can’t actually force us to fight? What if most of their power is simply an illusion? We’re just assuming they’re able to do certain things, and they’re taking advantage of that, not bothering to correct us?

Chuckling, he shook his head. "Yeah, and what if pigs could fly." He opened his eyes and stood up straight, looking at the steel jungle laid out before him. He was on the roof of some building, and he could see distant movement. There were people here. Were they hostile, like before? Had the two bastards who fancied themselves the conductors of this ridiculous concert turned these natives against them? Blitz grimaced, eyes narrowing and hand clenching into a fist. This time, if they got in his way, if they threatened his life…they would get no mercy. Vex might use his trickery to sneak around unscathed, but he would…but…

The young man’s gaze lost focus, the pinkish swirl which had started to show in his left eye fading away to nothing. His hand loosened and he stood less straight, seeming to be in a daze. What had he been thinking? Killing innocent people who were nothing more than victims of the two entities who had started this whole thing? Victims just like Blitz? He shook his head, his expression losing its hardness and taking on the more familiar look of fear and worry. Vex. He had to find Vex.

He took a deep breath, the mixed smells of grease and gasoline overpowering the more subtle, salty scent of the ocean. It was calming, somehow. Yes. He would search for Vex. The satyr would have an idea of what to do next. Death might end up being the only option, but first they would try their best to find another solution. He trusted the guy. Was that smart? Maybe not. A frown creased his normally innocent, boyish features.

“If their little speech changed Vex’s mind, then I’ll just have to see if I can find a way out of this on my own.” Another deep breath. Another calming breath. “Murder will be my last resort.”

And with that statement (and perhaps a hint of rose in his pale, blind orb?), he set off across the city in search of a companion, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

GBCE · 09-01-2010, 10:40 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Weldar.

Steven was once again shaken by the round change. It was strange, he should have been used to it, it was such a familiar feeling, yet somehow also so different, something about it was just warped and wrong compared the gates he'd become accustomed to. Perhaps it was the fact that for Steven each new gate always brought with it the faintest glimmer of hope while in this twisted battle the changes of scenery signified only failure and death. Although that wasn't entirely true a little more had happened in this scene transition, and maybe there was a little glimmer of hope there as well. They don't approve of what Vex is doing, this was supposed to be a fight to the death and yet he's managed to get almost everyone working together trying to escape, they put obstacles into the fight us and he makes peace with them. Steven glanced down at his gloves. Could it be the one's behind this all aren't quite as powerful as they seem? Yes, it has to be. These gloves have to be the reason I'm here, without them I'm still basically a normal guy, surely not that interesting to watch in a fight. But the gloves are only a smaller part of a whole, why not take the entire thing? He's much more powerful and surely would have been a better choice of fighter? There has the be limits on what they can do, they couldn't take a god. And maybe, just maybe if we keep working together we can find those limits and beat them.

Steven's bubble had long since landed, he appeared to be in some sort of storeroom. There wasn't any signs on life nearby, just shelves full of various crates and boxes. With two feet on the ground again Steven suddenly realized how tired he was, any newfound determination his thoughts has given him was quickly washed away by a wave of exhaustion.
"Ughh, maybe I went a bit overboard with chains. That took way more out of me than he expected" he mumbled to no-one in particular.
He shuffled over to a nearby shelf and slumped down against it, releasing his gloves as he went.
"You guys go look around a bit, just don't go too far. I'm just gonna rest a bit here okay.

GBCE · 09-03-2010, 05:58 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

Vex doubled over, grasping his arm. His eyes bunched up in a furious squint as he tried desperately to turn his own powers inward, to make himself feel something else besides the burning pain. It worked, but he still felt something amiss inside himself. Something empty. What had happened? Why had it happened? He had just seen his arm shredded to meat and bone, and that horrible, screeching thing shredded with it.

The core of his powers as a God deal with trickery and deceit, but the boundary at the edge of what exactly fit under that category was rather nebulous. Vex could bend it from time to time to encompass other things, and at this moment he was trying to push it somewhere in the area of fixing his goddamn arm. His inability to do so was frustrating, but he would not tie that frustration and the emptiness he felt for some time. Eventually, Vex would discover that the mobile boundary had suddenly become stationary, that the powers he'd currently been equipped with were the ones he would have to work with--possibly forever. In fact, as he had denied himself the pain he should have felt, he had inadvertantly prevented himself from using his ability to cause pain in others. However, Vex would not discover this fact for a while, and in the meantime he was pained and frustrated. He held his arm up shakily to survey the damage.

The skin was simply flayed. Vex's fingers twitched as it slowly patched itself together, leaving pale scars. The muscle and tissue underneath was strange and unrecognizable, and the whole mess felt foreign somehow. He watched with increasing concern as the wounds oozed viscous fluid; not the red with which he was accustomed, but a deep indigo pitch that dripped in large, heavy globules.

Vex's flesh finished knitting itself together. He wiggled his fingers; his arm was scarred and pale, but functional. Directing his gaze outward, Vex saw more of the creatures that had fled to his world, inspecting him from the distance. Humans, they had called themselves. They seemed cautious, unsure whether he was dangerous.

He turned around to survey this end of the portal he had just come through. Where it was an unseemly tear on his world's end, here it was contained neatly in a metallic ring. Looking far into the distance through the ring, he could see his world, several beings peering through it at him as well. Jabal, Love God, stood at the front, having just thrown Vex through.

Vex inspected the rest of the space between the worlds, and felt unsettled in an unidentifiable way. He heard the sound of a snap, and his mind barely had time to register the shape of a human figure standing in that space for a moment before it disappeared.

Black eyes. White, sharp teeth, smirking.

Vex shuddered briefly as he recalled his first few moments with Magog. His arm now reminded him of those times, before the beast had found a way to surface on his skin. Before it could warp the world and alter his emotions and put thoughts in his head. In those first few months, comparing his experiences with the freedoms he'd had as an immortal god, and not knowing how bad it would become, he was upset with the circumstances. He didn't know how to enjoy what he had until it got worse.

And now, even with the benefit of these new experiences, he couldn't enjoy it fully because he was stuck in this stupid battle.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to try, though. He smiled coyly as he inspected the wide bank of computer monitors before him, displaying the entirety of the vast compound from many angles. Beside him, a large, humanoid, very flustered birdlike creature embarrassedly tried to retract his extended mating plumage while handcuffed to a supply rack. Vex idly tossed the creature's walkie-talkie to himself as he traced the path of a few select figures across the screens.

Krad's walkie-talkie crackled to life, as did the walkie-talkies of every other security special-est in the compound. "Code red security alert," the voice said. "Unidentified creature in construction area T-11. Target is a giant glowing green creature with large claws and a tail." There was a short pause. "Seriously, you can't miss him."

Vex kicked back in his rolling chair and watched the screens while sampling some seeds out of the packet on the table. He made a disgusted face and tossed the open bag onto the former camera-guy-boss's chest. The birdlike creature tried to protest his inability to reach them with bound beak and hands, but Vex had already turned back around to enjoy the show.

SpoilerShow

**Schazer** · 09-03-2010, 10:26 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

Krad frowned a little as Vex cut off the transmission. He was perfectly happy to follow the orders coming from the walkie-talkie, but it took the Yagg a good moment to figure out what those orders were, precisely. An uhn-i-dentee-fied creature, especially one as weird as the boss-man had described, certainly sounded like trouble. It was the kind of trouble that left the security special-est a bit worried, but not as worried as the thought of what one of the bosses would say.

Seeing as the boss-bird hadn't said what to do with the beast, the Yagg rather naively decided it was a chance to be pro... pro-ac-tiff. Yeah. The boss-men didn't have to spell out how Krad should hit things over the head; they trusted him to do that right himself! They were trusting him to be pro-ac-tiff here as well, and deal with the creature. With a grin, he hefted his club with pride, and stomped off for the construction site.

It was down in the base of the complex, and Krad couldn't see the site even from his higher vantage point, thanks to a large storehouse. A metal tunnel, with enough room for even Krad to walk through, was attached to the back of this warehouse and climbed steeply up the tiers toward the Yagg's current location, and extended even further up. Although there was no way in, it had stairs to the bottom on the side of it, and the security special-est was presently stomping down these.

About halfway down, a blood-curdling shriek made Krad pause. A roar of pain, which triggered a nasty sense of recognition, got the Yagg going a little faster.

The stairs stopped a fair distance from the rear wall of the warehouse, while the transport tunnel bent at meeting ground zero and continued into the building. Krad stood in the courtyard for a moment, catching his breath, when the uhn-i-dentee-fied creature came careening round the corner.

It was hissing and spitting angrily behind it as it galloped toward the startled security guard, but true to his job, Krad acted pro-ac-tiff-ly. He raised his head-hitter, and put it to good use.

Sen didn't even see it coming - one moment he was doing his best to spit solid hatred at the guard he'd just fled from, the next there was a crunching sensation on the side of his head before the Tender slammed into the warehouse wall in a crumpled heap. Another Yagg followed round the corner in pursuit, as Krad cautiously approached. A clear ooze was slowly leaking from under the creature's head, and its lower jaw looked like it didn't match up properly with the rest of its mouth. The long, sharp claws the boss had mentioned were twitching a little, as the beast groaned feebly and tried to lift its head.

Guft was even warier at approaching Sen than his colleague was. It only took a glance for Krad to see why - the Yagg's left eye was a puffy mess, the brow bearing a nasty gash. His face bore several more scratches, and he'd dropped his club somewhere to better staunch the blood from a nasty bite in his right arm.

"What happened?"

"Bit me, so I punched it. Then it run." The two of them continued to simply watch the struggling Tender for a moment.

"Now what?"

"Kill it?" Krad shrugged. It seemed as good an idea as any. Sen made a sad creaking noise as Guft moved in with his club.

"W-wait!" A voice barked from the walkie-talkie. It wasn't one Krad had heard before, but he switched it on anyway. He asked the mystery man why.

"Uh... take it somewhere secure, instead. Make sure it can't escape."

Krad, perplexed, studied the device for a moment before shrugging and pinning it back to his sash.

"What was that?" asked Guft. He still had his club raised.

Krad shrugged again, a little more helplessly. "I dunno. They said maybe escape? They had a strange accent. Hard to tell." Guft made a an exasperated noise.

Steven swore to himself when the Yagg cut off with no reply, and leapt up a pile of crates to look out the window at the arguing pair. The white dot of the left glove was nearly visible atop the transport tunnel, but Steven was more concerned with the ramifications of a contestant having its brains crushed to a pulp, even if it was the one contestant which arguably didn't even have one. He flicked through the frequencies a little more frantically, until he got some incomprehensible, birdlike chattering.

"Um... hello?"

Vex frowned at the receiver, then ventured an avian "Yerss?" as he cycled through the various views the security system offered him of Oxbow.

Steven nearly dropped his walkie-talkie in relief, then got a better grip on it as he saw Guft shove Krad out of the way so he could get a proper swing in. "Uh, down by a construction site at the base, there's two trolls or something, I dunno, but I think they're going to kill the green, uh... thing they knocked out there. Can- can you make them stop?"

Vex, still trawling the footage, was silent while he figured out his next course of action. Steven, misinterpreting it as complete confusion, continued, "Just, please... we've got important business here and if he dies we... well, we need to make the most of this."

"Understood," chirped Vex, shutting off the connection and buzzing the trolls.

Krad's walkie-talkie beeped a second time. The two Yagg looked at each other, Guft with his club raised. Krad answered it with a little more trepidation.

"Did you not get your orders? Take the creature to... a containment facility. Do not kill it, but well done on a solid effort. Make sure at least one of you is guarding it at all times. Understand?"

"Yes sir," replied Krad, pleased at a job well done. Guft tried not to look too disappointed as he helped his colleague heft the unwieldy beast. The two carried Sen the short distance to the now-open doors to the transport tunnel, dropping him on the floor of the cargo vehicle and waiting for their ride back to the upper levels.

Steven, from his window, watched the scene with a sigh of relief as the glove of destruction hopped off the top of the tunnel, and soared back to him. The traveler was about ready to relax, the main interruption eliminated, when his walkie-talkie beeped.

"Query. Who is this and what is your business here?"

"I- uh-" the left glove took Steven's panic as a chance to grab the walkie-talkie and rapidly destroy it into nothing. Considering how tired he was feeling, the journeyman sort of wished his tempermental tool hadn't done that.

Now, hopefully Vex is free of distractions, and can find a way out of here.

GBCE · 09-23-2010, 01:41 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by redskap.

A scream? It didn’t sound human…

Blitz stood on a rooftop, his leaps and bounds having brought him close to the central point of the underwater dome. He could see the buildings he had passed rising high above. The scream made the large, looming constructions seem a little bit more menacing then they had been before.

I think that was Sen. Or maybe one of the creatures that live here? I’m really not sure what kinds of sounds they might make.

As he leapt across the city, the boy had seen what looked like a few different species walking the streets. It appeared that the most abundant were a scaly, lizard-like folk. They filtered through the narrow streets and paths leading through the steel jungle, some small, most large. Blitz thought that the size difference might have been either gender or age. He supposed it didn’t really matter whether it was one or the other. A rarer sight had been some abnormally tall humanoids. All he could tell as he passed over them was that they seemed to be covered in feathers.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that things like that exist. Nothing else so far has made much sense. Still…if that was Sen, I hope they aren’t hurting him. He's just an animal in an unfamiliar place. He can't help what he does.

And with that final thought, he leapt away, heading toward the sound of the otherworldly screech.

***

“Gods damned grunts, blabbing away all the time! Don’ they know some people are trying to concentrate?!”

Dim Cyrris, Head of Research and Development, was in his position for good reason. No brown-noser he, he worked his way up the (admittedly short) bureaucratic ladder beak and claw. He may have stepped on a few colleagues to get where he was, but what of it? He treated them well enough as his subordinates. Excepting, of course, the idiots that got it into their heads to make fun of Cyrris’ first name. Those men would find themselves on the street and looking for work that very day.

The only downside to being head of his department was that he was forced to keep a communicator on him at all times, “for emergencies”. Emergencies his rear plumage. What did he need to know about such things for? The flood siren would alert him as well as anything else; it also had the added benefit of not being slung on his hip for all hours of the workday. Having to hear the grunts butcher every word and phrase that left their mouths got rather tiring as well.

But Cyrris was a good Dejaan, hardworking, and he followed instructions. It was part of his job to keep that communicator on him (no matter how bothersome he found it), and it was for this reason that he happened to overhear the conversation regarding the unknown creature that the grunts had captured. He stopped what he was currently focused on (the cultivation of a possible form of organic steel; metal that could be grown!) and reached down to the walkie-talkie hanging out of his coat pocket. He held it in front of his beak, depressing the button so that his buzzing, raspy voice could filter through to the meatheads hauling his prize to who-knew-where.

“Oi! Ya grunts- Ya ‘Security Specialists’! The ones with the unidentified creature! Bring that unknown to Warehouse 17! That’s Warehouse One-Seven, near the main R&D Center! I swear I’ll have both yer heads if you don’t get it there within the hour!”

Krad and Guft looked at each other, scaly eyebrows raised. “Who that?” Krad asked, his eyes dull and unrecognizing. Guft frowned for a moment, scratching under his special-est cap (it always got so itchy!) and trying to ignore the throbbing pain of his injuries, until he eventually shrugged. “Dunno. Sound like some sort of boss-man, though.” Krad nodded, agreeing silently, and pressed the button on his oversized walkie, responding to Cyrris. “Yes, sir. Wear-house Seventeen. Wear-house One-Seven. Bringing thingy there.”

Cyrris grinned, knowing that even with such a response, he might never see the unknown. But it was the best you could get out of these damn Yaggs. He only hoped that they would actually know where the warehouse was; you really never knew with the grunts. “Aye, good on ya, Yaggs. Bring it fast and there might be a bonus in it for you. And for the sake of the gods, don’t break it any more than ya already have! I want an intact specimen!”

Not The Author · 10-04-2010, 11:24 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.

The roundabout method by which the contestants were shipped to their new starting points gave Jacob a great deal of time to think.

Due to the nature of his work and magical specialization, Jacob had spent some time learning about how the universe and time travel worked. There were several theories – branching models, singular overwrites, parallel streams – but most of the more plausible variants relied upon the existence of multiple universes. In theory, an infinite number of universes existed in which all things that could happen did happen, and that Jacob’s home universe was not a singular timeline but something more akin to a mesh of streams. The specifics didn’t matter, though, as an infinite number of universes meant there were infinite opportunities for an underwater city such as this to develop, an infinite number of Jacobs running around killing things or possibly not.

Thus, while there didn’t need to be an infinite number of them, more in the vein of S and Talis was not nearly far-fetched enough for his liking, even without their confirmation. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, though, their only discernible lies to date had been via omission. He had the time to wonder what the most likely number of pseudogods was. Probably somewhere between infinity and eight.

Of course, there wasn’t really much he could do about that, so he didn’t worry about it. One of the things he’d learned over his career was that worrying about immutable facts only distracted from current objectives. On the other hand, there wasn’t much to do but worry at the moment, so he might as well plan ahead.

He’d killed John. Well, he hadn’t really killed John, but if anyone had seen them together prior to the eruption, that would be the assumption. So he’d have to diffuse that misconception quickly should it arise. John had gotten himself killed by being rash. True enough to pass for truth.

Sen was in hydroponics. No, Sen was going to be in hydroponics. This was for the amusement of a higher power; zany antics couldn’t be appreciated if they ended too quickly. He’d hole up there, set up an ambush if he could, and wait for Sen to come to him. Of course, the lizard might plant a Tree elsewhere, but he couldn’t really do anything about that besides keep his eyes peeled.

And then there was Iris. He’d not exactly met Wolf, but this being an entirely different individual it didn’t really matter. All it meant was that, were she to end up hostile, she’d be that much more difficult to kill than a wild animal. The “summoning” thing was concerning, but he’d deal with that later.

The containment bubble vanished, and the sound of rushing water filled Jacob's ears.

__________

The Problem was simple.

The Problem was not that there was pressure buildup at Junction Delta on Deck 4, though that was why he was there. The Problem was not that the entire hydropower facility was shoddily built, though this was why he was employed there. The Problem was not even that nobody had had any idea about how to properly build things designed for underwater living, or that no one had since bothered to permanently fix them, which was why he had so much work. These were not The Problem because these he could deal with. He was good at his job; the work it entailed was rewarding; and he liked the place of his employment.

“Hey, uh…”

No, The Problem was that everyone was idiots.

“Workin’.”

He didn’t even bother looking up from the tangled mess of pipes. Heng was a busy Rhone, and there would undoubtedly be more problems halfway across the facility before he’d finished here. A mechanic’s work was never done, after all. But nobody seemed to get that. They were always hounding him with inconsequential details when a pressure build-up like this could breach the dome if left unchecked!

“I just-“

“Sai’ ‘m workin’!”

“Look, the sooner you help me, the sooner I’ll get off your case. You don’t even have to get up.”

The mechanic stroked his trunk with a free hand. He supposed it couldn’t hurt, and anyway, he didn’t necessarily have to help well to get this guy to leave.

“Spi’ i’ ou’, ‘en.”

“Yeah, see, they told me to go to hydro… something. But they mentioned plants, and this place doesn’t look like it has plants…”

“Ah, yeh, thi’s ‘ydropower. Yer s’posed t’ be ‘n ‘ydroponi’s.”

“Yeah, that sounds right. …Sort of. So, which way is…?”

“What’ch do ‘s… See th’ cable u’ there?”

“…There are a lot of cables up there.”

Heng rolled his eyes and looked at his guest for the first time since they’d started talking. He’d intended the look to display exactly how little he cared for the interruption, but it sort of ended up as a bewildered stare. Not that you could tell behind the goggles.

“Which one?”

“…Th-tha‘ ‘n. Jus’… follo’ i’ ‘ntil y’ get t’ th’ plaz’n ta’e a lef’.“

“Uh.”

“Then y’ kee’ on ‘ntil y’ ge’ t’ th’ fact’ry ‘n go u’ three de’s.”

“…Right.”

“’En jus’ follo’ th’ yello’ catwa’k ‘ntil y’ get t’ th’ sign an’ yer there.”

“I'm... just... going to find a map somewhere. Thanks for the... help, anyway.”

“N-no probl'm.”

Heng watched the man casually stroll down the catwalk, fancy shoes clicking against the worn metal. He only managed to tear his eyes away when his pager started beeping. Fumbling the device from his pouch, he flicked the alarm off and read the waiting message.

[Deck 6, turbine array 3. Need replacement blades in turbines F and H.]

More work, of course. Some days he wondered how the dome managed to stay up. The mechanic glanced up from the alert to the filter before him. He was nearly finished, just had to reroute a couple of bypassed pipes back into the main apparatus and everything would be good until it broke again.

And yet...

Heng turned once more towards the sound of receding footfalls. Then he was on his feet, sprinting for the nearest service phone.

For once, work could wait.

GBCE · 11-03-2010, 05:43 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

SpoilerShow

GBCE · 12-04-2010, 02:13 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

Rays of multicolored light pierced through the waves of an ocean with no bottom, barely casting light on something vast beneath the surface. An intricate web of fleshy stalks spread up from some indeterminable point in the deep, each terminating in a semi-spherical nub. Between these nodes, streamers of light darted back and forth, tracing out strange designs only meaningful to those thinking about them.

There was a splash that could only be felt, but not seen. Something invisible, intangible, and impotent drifted into the deep, gnashing its nonexistent teeth in anguish.

The stalks began to sway in the sea and converge into one point. They mashed themselves together, resembling a gargantuan face. With a sudden flash of light, two luminous eyes shot open, sending a shock through the water that made everything around seem to hum quietly with potential. The face in the deep spoke to its new guest in the raw language of ideas.

"What are you, little beast? You seem familiar."

The only response it received was the idea of loss.

"Do you have no words, little beast? Everything with Mind has words, in one way or another. Without language, everything would be chaos."

The idea of chaos repeated itself from the mouth of Chaos.

"You have no Mind, then? It is no wonder you are lost. A lost mind with no Mind."

There was an idea of desperation, and then confusion.

"I can help, you know. The word for me is Ungol, and I am God of the Mind. I can grant you the gift of Mind, and you will not be lost anymore. Come here, let me see what you are..."

The streamers of light twisted and converged at a point in front of the face, the light forming shapes in the deep. The full spectrum of colors shifted to a deep indigo, and a transparent, writhing, screaming mass of tendrils and teeth faded into view. The mouths' insistent gnashing slowly ceased, and the mass spoke.

"I hate."

The face's mouth slowly dropped open, its eyes shifting from shock to concern.

"I know what you are, now."

"I am change unending. I am what order is not, what you are not. I am the end. I am Magog. And you...you have made a mistake."

Magog burst from the ocean of Ungol, the physical world now unable to support his figmentary form. Below him, he no longer saw a shifting manifestation of liquid order, he saw an ocean. Before him, he did not see a massive buoyant spire of everything he hated, he saw an island. He saw a world, air, a sky. He saw a universe. And behind those things, he saw other words, new words. Causality. Physics. Death, Birth, Love, Hate, Dream, Mind, and... Chaos. This word did not describe him. This was not his Chaos. His Chaos was a binary split. Chaos and Order, each existing exclusively where the other did not. This new Chaos word, it meant something different. It was one of seven other forces, each operating in tandem, sometimes overlapping on an infinite spectrum of possibilities.

Magog hated this word. But, he was not done. The words even infiltrated his past. Events, objects, beings, even ideas, all had words. And further beneath these words, scratching at the base of his newborn consciousness with a red tendril of energy, even more longed to be let in.

"If you are hearing this, then you, too, are a victim of the whims of an enigmatic master, whom has forced you into a battle to the death with many other strange beings. You are likely far from your home, far from your friends, far from your family.

"My name is Vandrel Reinhardt, and I am in a battle similar to yours. I seek allies, to overthrow these unworthy grandmasters. I assume that, if you can receive this message, then you have some way of reaching into the multiverse. Seek me out. Together, we can fight for our freedom."

Friends. Family. Allies. These words are what the Vandrel Reinhardt words sought. They were not goals that Magog shared. But, beyond that... Death. Battle. Fight. Freedom. Magog understood that, as he was now, he could not do anything. He had to accept that his word for Chaos no longer applied to him. He was his own agent, with his own goals. His hate was unconnected with the machinations of universally-enforced lack of order.

He also understood that he was tied to Vex, and as much as he hated that word too, he could not attain freedom without taking it from him first.

Magog learned the words for the red tendril, and thought himself to their source. In their words, he thought himself into a mind. The mind of a girl whose word was Julia.

"I have many new words. Self, Magog, chaos, lost. These words are all mine. I am in a battle somewhere, on an island with a volcano and an ocean. In exchange for your help finding myself, I will make 'ally' one of my words, too."

Magog, for all his new-found understanding, still missed a few key pieces of information, not the least of which was that "island with a volcano and an ocean" lacked enough specificity to be meaningful to anyone. Even if it was informative enough to elicit assistance, the island to which he referred was so far away from his target that the concept of "distance" was essentially meaningless.

A few blocks away from his target, seated atop a large executive-style chair behind a large executive-style desk, a lone figure bore a scowling expression as she sifted through the contents of a manila folder. She wore an oppressively-starched business suit, with accommodations for her short vestigial scaled tail in the back, a throwback from the genetic template that had spawned her ancestors. She scanned the document with increasing ire. These allegedly-diplomatic "requests" for collaboration with her Cheratid subordinates were becoming increasingly forceful. She fought to keep her emotions in check, expressing her contempt with a vicious snarl rather than by tearing the paper in half. The humans would play god with her kind, while being too proud to use the same methods of genetic guidance that had led to her and her ancestors' intellect on themselves? Then, they would have the gall to ask her to "share" the fruits of that intellect with them? She took a deep breath and turned to the computer terminal inset into her desk, searching through it for whichever form letter said "fuck off" as politely and aggressively as possible.

A blinking green icon of a phone appeared on her desk's screen, accompanied by a chiming sound. The information spelled out beneath the icon identified the call as coming from elsewhere in the facility. She pressed it with a scaled finger. "Liss here. What do you want?"

"Ey, 's Heng. Y'know 'bou' any 'uman vis'ors s'pose t' be 'ere ri' now?"

Liss narrowed her eyes. What a suspicious question. "Let me make something very clear. There are not now, nor in the foreseeable future, humans allowed into this facility."

"We go' a pro'lem then, Liss. Go' a 'uman 'ere in 'ydropower, said 'e was lookin' fer 'ydroponi's."

Liss stood up from her chair quickly. "What? What did he want?"

"'E di'n' say. Jus' walked i' and ou' like 'ere wu'n nuthin' odd 'bou' i'."

Liss took a moment to parse Heng's accent, then another for a deep, calming breath. "Where is he now?"

"I don' know, 'e jus' wal'zed ou'. Almos' li'erally, 'e 'ad musi' playing from 'is coa'. Li' I sai', presuma'ly 'es on 'is way to 'ydroponi's."

"Thank you, Heng. I will take care of it."

"O' course y'will."

Liss ended the call, a cauldron of frustration boiling in her chest. How did a human even get inside this place, much less deep enough into the facility to get to Hydropower without being noticed? And why, then, would they proceed to expose themselves as purposefully as this one had? The stealth required for entry smelled of subterfuge, while the reveal indicated, what? A trap, most likely. Yes, that must be it. A human agent or agents infiltrated the facility, and were preparing some sort of ambush for higher-ranking officials in Hydroponics. They had finally escalated. Naturally, she would not be walking into it. Now sure of her destination, she adjusted her suit and strode purposefully through the door to her office.

Vex was getting restless behind his bank of glowing screens, but the time to mull over his current predicament was appreciated. He watched carefully for any glimpses of Iris and Blitz, caught randomly from their rooftop positions by the haphazard cameras all over the various buildings in the facility. Oddly, they apparently hadn't noticed each other yet, though they were headed in similar directions. Iris was headed toward somewhere along the perimeter, while Blitz… Vex wasn't sure, but he seemed to be on the opposite side of the dome and moving towards the center, near his current position. Vex recalled with minor trepidation the last major interaction the two had, at the beginning of the previous round. He had offered to assist Blitz in seducing one of the natives, but then retracted the offer when he did not respond quickly enough for his liking. That was not how things should work, and was no doubt a result of Magog's heightened influence at the time. Perhaps he could make it up to him.

And then there was this new contestant, Iris. A woman, and an attractive one at that. However, the orchestrators of the battle seemed to consider it a foregone conclusion that he would hook up with her. That fact alone was enough to make him resist the idea, simply to deny them authority in any way he could. Besides, it was destined to end in sorrow; this was, after all, a battle to the death.

A battle to the death, where escape by his actions alone did not seem likely. If he were to return to his world by any means other than by winning the battle conventionally, then it would be via the aid of his former compatriots in godhood. That was likely the outcome responsible for the fear inherent in the note he had received between rounds, as he didn't feel his more conventional attempts to escape had born much fruit, all things considered. Since waiting to be rescued by gods did not require effort on his part, perhaps the best course of action was to… well, participate. While he did not enjoy the thought of killing these remaining five people, the stakes at this point had been raised to the reinstatement of his godhood and the dethroning of his son, goals which, in Vex's mind, overruled the loss of five lives. He had, after all, taken lives before in the several-millenia-long span of his life, albeit infrequently.

However, this posed several problems to him. The first of these problems was that he was nowhere near the most combat-capable of the people in this group. In fact, he was perhaps the least. Loath as he was to admit it, the one thing that had made him in any way dangerous was currently elsewhere. Without Magog, he had little in the way of strength or combat training and no weapons. To make matters worse, none of the contestants currently living seemed particularly inclined to take lives, themselves. If Vex were to become the exception to that, they would likely all turn on him at once, and he was almost certain that would end in his death.

However, where he was not adept at causing death, he was very skilled at avoiding it. Furthermore, he realized, he did not actually have to kill five people. He only had to kill one. The last one. Until that point, he had a reputation to uphold.

Vex's thought processes were interrupted by the sound of the door opening behind him, and he quickly forged a connection with all entering parties. Chained bird-guy looks like shelf? Own appearance changed to his? Change the Deejan's frantic bound pleas to background noise? Mask his smell and that of the security guy? After completing his mental checklist, he turned in his chair to greet the ingressors. Before him, a short, but somehow imposing scaly biped was flanked by two large hairy beasts armed with large clubs. A quick check of the Deejan's mind's impressions of the figures registered recognition in the scaly one; Liss, boss, hardass, scary. He shifted the image of the feathered creature for be more cowed and submissive.

"H-Hey, Liss, what're you..."

"Move," she interrupted, pushing Vex's seat aside. "I've received word that there is at least one human in the facility. We will discuss why you haven't informed me of this momentarily-"

Vex panicked and tried to move the chair in time with her motion. He could craft a three-dimensional image in several people's minds at the same time, make them hear the same things from the same directions, even make himself look like whatever was behind him from several angles at once to hide. But, there was one thing he never got the hang of. There was simply too much involved in making even one being feel weight differently. Her muscles were going to exert a known amount of force, and he'd have to make her perception of her own arm move more than it had, move his own image further, alter her tactile sensations where her fingers met the image of the Deejan, mask himself actually moving the chair back...

Luckily, she seemed too engrossed in the task at hand to notice. After pushing him aside, she planted her hands firmly on the desk and bent over, inspecting the screens closely. Vex and his illusion stood and stepped back, ostensibly to offer her more room, but he was boxed in my the two massive, hairy bodyguards that had entered with her. This was hardly ideal.

"What the hell is going on, here?" Liss asked, incredulously. She turned towards Vex.

A look of surprise crossed Liss's face upon turning to face him, and she looked back to both of her guards in turn. Then, she turned further, inspecting the far corner of the cramped room. She looked directly at Vex's prisoner.

Vex's eyes shot open in alarm as adrenaline rushed into his veins. Had he slipped? Did one of his muffled sounds make it through? Regardless, she was turning, and took a step towards the corner. "Did anyone enter this room before me?" Liss asked, slowly.

"N-No, ma'am." He cycled through her senses' impression of the corner while frantically trying to fix whatever his oversight was. Sight? Seemed normal. Sound? Nothing. She took another step. Vex swallowed hard and urgently continued on his checklist. Smell? Her sense of smell was heightened compared to his, but he'd been masking the scent.

With unexpected swiftness, she leapt, as did Vex's heart. The jig was up, she would find him. He had to get out. He left his image in the same location and darted around the side of the bodyguards, trying to find a passage through them without touching them. He tried to keep his cool. What should she find? She would touch his prisoner, he wouldn't be able to hide that. He would have to remove the illusion. Then, he had to get out before she found out his false image wasn't where he was anymore. He dropped the illusion hiding the Deejan just as Liss was about to make contact.

The bodyguard he was going to step in front of stepped forward and turned towards the image he'd made. Liss turned to face the image's location, and then turned further to face Vex himself. Liss pointed directly to him.

"Guja, swing there!" she barked. Vex had the Yagg's long processing time to thank for the fact that he managed to duck under the swing. He rolled to the side, and Liss lunged directly for him. Everything was going wrong. How could she see him? Swing there indicated an aptitude for location that Liss would know the Yaggs did not share, but what...?

Liss quickly drew a sparking black rectangle from her coat mid-lunge and thrust it downwards towards Vex. He moved his arm out of its trajectory, but it hit his cloak and pinned it to the ground with Liss's follow-through. He knew that when he pulled the cloak out from underneath, she would feel it. Vex got ready to alter her sense of touch to negate it as best he could...

That was it. Her sense of touch. Through her senses, Vex felt the heat emanating from his body, as well as from the body of the still-bound Deejan in the corner. She could feel exactly where he was, and how warm. It hadn't occurred to him to alter that, as he'd never encountered another creature with that sense before.

"Show yourself," Liss yelled. Vex knew he would have to show her something. Something to cause an alarm. Something that would make the Yaggs move away from the door...

He suddenly recalled what Liss was talking about when she'd entered.

A well-dressed human man, or at least the sights, sounds, and heat signature of one, shimmered into being from nothingness and leapt up and to the left, over Liss's head. She was so surprised, she didn't even take note of the feeling of the ground beneath her taser pulling to the right. All presently visible moved to subdue the human. His immediate and unexpected disappearance prior to capture, as well as the disappearance of the illusory Deejan, was accompanied by the sound of the door closing.

Vex lurched up the stairs, his long legs taking them three at a time, his heart almost beating out of his chest. Cresting the stairs, he glanced around for signs of anyone to hide his presence from. Fortuitously, his vantage point gave him a more upward view than most walking below. Accompanied by a humming sound and a static trail, a scarred man in a red scarf leapt between two rooftops overhead.

Vex smiled slowly as an idea sparked through his mind. Blitz: a man who he owed a romantic interest from last round. Iris: an attractive woman with whom he was hesitant to initiate romantic contact. Perhaps it was time to play matchmaker, at least until an opportunity for blameless murder presented itself.

Blitz skidded to a halt as he heard a voice in his head. After the inexplicable disappearance of his father, he'd been growing accustomed to the mental solitude. This particular intrusion, however, was not unwelcome. Following the voice's instructions, he backtracked and leapt down from the edge of the building. Artificially empowering his leg muscles to take the impact more robustly, he landed neatly in front of the alien satyr whose voice he heard.

"Vex," he said, smiling in a way that only a man scarred over half his face could make creepy, "I'm glad I found you."

"I'm glad I found you too, dude!" said Vex, his unencumbered mind now much more adept at picking up slang and idioms from Blitz's mind. "How've you been?"

Blitz was only slightly off-put by the former god's unexpected casual tone. "I...uh...well this whole battle thing is still pretty terrible. And I heard Sen a second ago, It screamed pretty loud. I was going to see what was up there and... uh... save him I guess."

Vex raised one furred eyebrow at him. "Huh. Well, I'm not sure what that would accomplish, especially considering the creatures here apparently have some sort of problem with humans."

A look of concern crossed Blitz's face. "Well... what's the escape plan for this round?"

Vex pointed directly up. "Depends how good a swimmer you are." Blitz's face cycled through several responses until Vex punched him playfully on the arm. "Just kidding, man. You gotta loosen up a bit. I'm playing it by ear, you're the first other contestant I've found." He looked over in the direction Blitz was originally heading. "Why don't we go find some of the others? I'm pretty sure Iris is further up that way. Oh, and by the way-"

As if on cue, a tremendous static crackle burst from hidden loudspeakers all across the facility. "Attention, employees. We have a human incursion into the facility. Until further notice, this entire facility is on lockdown. There will be no more trains in or out. The humans are known to possess some form of cloaking technology. Please report all suspicious activity to any security officer or to extension 415. And to the humans, I'm watching you. You will not escape. Find a phone, extension 415. Four one five. Let's talk."

Another static burst as the transmission ended. Vex nodded, continuing where he left off in the conversation. "Yeah, that." Vex made a sheepish expression as Blitz's brow lowered. He shrugged. "My bad."

**Schazer** · 12-09-2010, 12:33 AM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

Light-dark. Light-dark.

The shuttle zoomed up and out of the amphitheatre that was Oxbow, each glass doorway at each repetitive station registering only as a gloom-shattering burst. Station W-7 flashed by without any new passengers to join the two Yaggs, and their strange, conscious cargo.

About twenty seconds ago, the sixth station from the bottom end of the line registered as a fourth flash of light upon the motionless heap of green by Guft’s feet. Sen blinked, and parted his jaws a little to taste the air. Everything to the behind left of him was obscured by a tangibly painful malevolence, that seemed to register across most of the Tender’s senses. But the still-leaking gash on his head wasn’t what was occupying Sen.

Light-dark. Dark… light-dark.

It was like a heartbeat. Day and night, a measured, slow pulse befitting a beast as large as a planet. Light-dark. Day-night.

But it was too fast.

Day-night. Day-night. Day-night. Time as a plant could only measure it, flickering as ephemerally by as the lifespan of the little animals which crawled in the leaf litter. It felt wrong, it felt out of step and dizzying and disorienting and-

Accommodate. Insinuate. To bemoan the change was a waste of ever-quickening time. Keep up. Speed up. Between the flickers of devious light, the tunnel was faintly luminous green. Were Guft to glance down at his feet, he would’ve seen the synaptic sparks leaping from seed pod to seed pod in a faint, but ever-quickening circuit.

Krad did look at it. The little lights were whirling round really really fast. Krad wondered if they’d suddenly stop if he touched one of the seed brown thingies. The Yagg extended a hairy finger over the pod in the green creature’s shoulder, and prodded it.

Sen’s eyes snapped open. The World Tree on his shoulder exploded in a frenzy of white, hairy tendrils, ensnaring Krad’s hand in half a second. The Yagg tried to yank his hand away, but the roots sensed the heat, the moisture of warm flesh and sprouted long spines, pinned deep into Krad’s fingers. Roaring with pain, the wild swinging of his hand only yanked a thoroughly disgruntled Sen to its feet.

And the roots did not stop growing – in the Bubble Universe, Yggdrasillus had climbed to the sun in a matter of hours. Here, a day flicked by every twenty seconds. The Yagg didn’t stand a chance - roots snaked up his arm and across his chest, piercing him with spines, spines sprouting more burrowing, thirsty roots. Sen just kind of took it in his stride, snarling at Guft and swinging a few talons to warn the other Yagg to keep his distance, swaying unsteadily all the while as Krad thrashed about. Guft could only stand agape as his colleague’s howls weakened, before the club was hefted and swung at Sen with a furious bellow.

The Tender couldn’t duck or dodge, not with the Krad-consuming World Tree still embedded in his shoulder. Avoidance proved unnecessary, as a resounding crack echoed through the transport tunnel, Sen raising an insanely fast forearm, countering the blow with a seed pod.

Then the shuttle jerked to a halt, and Krad’s root-strangled, lifeless body crashed on top of Sen, who screeched just because he could. The chute doors slid open, bathing the bewildering scene in light bisected only by the shadow of an astounded Dim Cyrris. The Dejaan’s expectations of the Yaggs hadn’t been sufficient to assume they’d make it from the cargo tunnel to Warehouse 17, but it took more imagination than a practical man like Cyrris could muster to envisage a scene like this. The World Tree’s victim was starting to become little more than a hairy suggestion of a silhouette, as the voracious plant digested the poor creature. Sen made a foul-tempered ratchety noise from somewhere beneath Krad; Guft was about to say something when the Dejaan strode forth and punched the emergency chute lockdown, his features both startled and grim.

Would a net do the trick? Cyrris wondered to himself, as he strode with nervous purpose to the nearest depot. No, it’s likely to injure itself… aha.

The Dejaan snatched up and shouldered the device, ran his talons over the wall of keys, and grabbed one of those before making his way to the vehicle bay.

Sen heaved himself up as the Yagg-shaped knot of roots uncoiled and crumbled to dust, save for a few snaky taproots which wrapped their meandering way over the Tender’s skin. Guft was furiously pounding the locked door, but the movement had a peculiar slowness to Sen’s perception. Like he was underwater. One root curled questioningly at the edge of the Tender’s vision, the white tip unfurling with a burst of luminosity. The tip was brushed like a sundew’s, dotted with neon nectar. It was only bright enough to bathe Sen’s questing, already-green tongue in a slightly less natural hue, but it was merely a taste of things to come. There was the subtlest twitch after Sen licked the flower clean, as the tendril got rid of the now-useless floral appendages. The toxic nectar triggered something. A sense of immediacy. A sense of hunger, unchecked.

Reward. Hunger. Find soil, find food, in the dark. Burrow. Insinuate. Grow. Conquer. Reward.

Sen took one jerky, hyperspeed attempt at a slow stalk. Another step. Another. The roots snaked through the darkness, seeking out more food.

Guft’s pained roars sent a chill down the Dejaan’s spine, returning as fast as he could drive the ute. He mentally counted in his head the time taken for the doors to reopen after a station lockdown, conceding there would have to be some explanation for what he now guiltily conceded would be two dead Yaggs, not to mention West Track being shut down like this.

Ah well, no gizzards, no glory, he thought, sneaking up to the door release and slamming it.

The Tender was baring its needly teeth at Guft, chattering mockingly as the World Tree’s roots enveloped him. Cyrris gulped his sense of bravado disappearing as fast as it came, planted Sen securely in the sights of his gun, and fired.

A barbed dart, attached to the harpoon gun with a slender, polymer tube, embedded itself in Sen’s neck. He turned with a snarl, but the tube had already expanded as the gun pumped out copious amounts of quick-setting foam. Sen got one irked claw in the stuff, overbalanced, screeched green murder, and got quite a few World Tree roots stuck in the foam as they lashed in the Dejaan’s direction.

It took three full canisters to subdue the monster, but Cyrris didn’t care. Struggling with the large white lump, he considered yelling at the Yagg for assistance, but stopped with shock when he saw the state of his injuries. Guft was punctured all over, and without blood-sucking plants plugging the holes he was shaggy hair was swiftly staining red. He was slumped against a wall, breathing ragged and convulsing with pain.

“You need medical attention,” Cyrris said, somewhat unnecessarily. There was no impatience or snap to his voice. In fact, it sounded legitimately concerned. And scared. “And we need to contain this- this thing.” Guft just nodded, took a deep breath, and peeled himself off the wall of the transport chute. A sticky red stain remained as he got his meaty fists under one end of the incapacitated Tender, and lifted it. The Dejaan struggled with the other end, the pair manhandling it onto the back of the ute. Cyrris jumped in the driver’s seat; Guft sat down on the back with enough weight to make the whole vehicle shake a little. Yaggs were tough. But this thing had killed one in mere minutes.

The avian floored it, heading at full speed for Warehouse 17.

GBCE · 03-06-2011, 06:05 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by kabbage.

if its not too late to join...

SpoilerShow

GBCE · 03-09-2011, 10:30 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

Yeah, you're over a year too late to join. If you'd like to participate in a grand battle like this one, they are starting more or less monthly. Check the grand battle planning thread.

Not that I'd need it after all this time, but reserved?

**Schazer** · 04-22-2011, 11:16 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Schazer.

“... Hrm.”

The Composer studied the globe for a further moment before turning to greet the interruption. The planet whose ghostly image she turned beneath her fingers was overwhelmingly green - an eerily silent planet shrouded in forest, lorded over by one gargantuan tree.

“What do you want?”

“Just, humour me,” snapped the Overseer. He dispensed with the smirking sass from their previous, first encounter; opting for light conversation over a sardonic reply. “Where's that?”

“I believe it's called Babylon by the mortals – an inhospitable planet which supports life, but only of one particular species of plant.”

“Cute. Did you make it?”

“No. A mere curious life-form which appeared in the universe I... employ. Provided the sapients therein refrain from exterminating themselves, I see fit to not dabble in it.”

“Are you... feeding off their brainwaves, or something?”

“Your arrogance poorly disguises the fact you're not fit to survive here. I'm sure you have some contestants to be almost murdered by, Overseer.”

There was an angry snap. “Fine then, Composer.” The Overseer spat the last word out. “I'll quit playing the idiot and tell you something you might get off your high horse to hear.” Blank eyes stared into a multitude of black ones, uttterly unconcerned. Another snap, and the Overseer had his sunglasses back.

“That plant. On Babylon. It's got a weird fruit, right?”

“Get to the-”

“Battle Majestic.” The Overseer allowed himself a little grin at her silence. “Yeah. I did my research, and you're the only other Grandmaster with a stake in this. So I'm doing you a favour.”

The Composer's domain juddered a little at that jibe, but the Grandmaster herself maintained her demeanour. “Yours is the goat, I presume?”

“Heh. You guessed. Now come with me, there's a guy you need to meet.”

- - - - -

Cyrris got the Yagg to the medical bay, picked up a few extra canisters of foam to further subdue the specimen, and was about halfway to Warehouse 17 before the wail of an alarm interrupted. He groaned, though he really shouldn't have been surprised.

Intruders. The jabbering coming through on his walkie-talkie said it was humans, even. Just great. Knowing the Yagg was probably going to survive, Cyrris' main priorities had shifted to getting the most out of his specimen. The consummate scientist.

Of course, the facility entering lockdown until this threat got dealt with meant the bunker. All the jabbering bigwigs trying to discuss their way to a solution while whatever idiots had tripped the alarm ran amok through Oxbow. Which meant dumping the specimen in formaldehyde, and getting as much out of the dissection as he could once it was dead and pickled for a good few hours. If he was lucky. Cyrris wasn't sure if it was possible to drug a plant, but didn't really want to risk it with this one.

A tinny squawking issued from a loudspeaker attached to a nearby roof, and was repeated again and again and again, until Cyrris' radio joined in. Crow-seven-ave-four, crow-seven-ave-four. Immediate evacuation from Station Seven (the nearest train out of Oxbow, presumably), with a backup arriving at Station Four somewhere in the region of “later”. Neither option appealed to the Deejan, which meant the bunker. He slammed the brakes outside Warehouse Seventeen, swiped the door open, and jogged to grab a cart. By the time Cyrris returned to the truck, Sen had figured out how to set his unbreakable pod rocking from side to side. A muffled clicking still forced its way out somehow.

Cyrris ignored the specimen's protests, and let it drop itself off the truck onto his cart. He drove through the warehouse, feathers rising and lowering in agitation as he considered how best to preserve this thing. Releasing it from the foam would be nice, seeing as the stuff was impervious to water, but that would likely take too long. Best just submerge the whole thing, let it break out, and drown. Simple.

The Deejan screeched to a halt in his lab's loading bay, unaware he'd been followed all this while.

- - - - -

“So you're the Composer. Pleasure to meet you. Charlatan.”

The Composer glanced briefly at her guide, who hadn't mistaken the introduction for a jab at the most casually-dressed of the three scheming bastards. He turned to the Composer. “Alright, so the deal here is-”

“You didn't think to explain the situation beforehand?”

“She's difficult to take anywhere, alright!?”

“Even for you? I'm impressed!” The Charlatan casually deflected the venomous glare both Grandmasters shot him. “So. The Battle Majestic. Your guys' buddy the Director only just realised it's meandered off into subspace. Or superspace. Or something. Look, I wasn't there for the briefing. Point is, the Director was getting antsy, the Executive wasn't answering his love-letters, so he's passing on the battle to more capable hands.”

“Yours?” asked the Composer, not bothering to hide her skepticism.

“You kidding? I just intercepted Director's invitation to Observer to run it for him.”

The Composer glanced over at the Overseer again. He was smirking and nodding just a little bit. “What stops you from running this without my and his assistance?”

The Charlatan grinned behind his mask.

“Well, it's only good manners. Unrelatedly, I've got no intention of being hunted down as a thief by some smoke-faced figurehead clinging to his dregs of authority. You ran a battle for him anyway, so if you're behind it it's just... redistribution.”

“Yours would be...”

“Petty Squabble.”

The Composer merely twitched. The Charlatan uncharacteristically politely pretended to not notice his companions had split off for a private discussion.

“Do all these upstarts have such ridiculous names?”

“Babe, you're asking me that like I'm paying attention.”

“I thought we agreed you would drop the idiot 'act'.”

“Fine. Phrase your questions better next time; pretty sure his is the time swordsman.”

“And the sponsors behind the other contestants?”

“He never mentioned any. I couldn't find any notables either.”

“... Hmph. What stops us from merely snatching the battle off him?”

“He's got the co-ordinates, he's showing us a shred of courtesy by inviting us along. But whatever. I'm joining him. You can go lament your god complex with that nutcase Organizer if you're too damn holy to languish with us mortals.”

No time had passed. “So?”

“Yes.” The Composer cut across the Overseer with a voice like a blizzard. “I will assist.”

“Awesome.”

snap

- - - - -

Cyrris slapped the button to lower his cargo into the formaldehyde vat. Then he was tackled by a human. Iris got to her feet first and kicked his radio under a shelf, letting him flee while she searched for the power button.

The Deejan sprinted out onto the deserted street, hunting for the nearest lift. There was a dawning realisation of the eerie, sirenless silence; the curtailed clang-thump of a heavy footfall – pierced by the rattle of gunfire.

The drone waited until the Deejan's thermal signature began to cool, before marching ponderously toward the building it had sprinted out of. Another lifeform was present inside. The drone had its orders.

GBCE · 04-23-2011, 04:28 PM

Originally posted on MSPA by Drakenforge.

Iris was surprised by the lack of resistance put up by the feathered humanoid. He had dropped the box which voices spoke out of, and made to grab it. Deeming it important, Iris kicked it from his reach. Iris expected it to put up a fight and gripped her knife in response, yet they just ran out the door and fled. As Iris turned to the control panel that was almost completely alien to her she realised she had no idea what to do. She could read the symbols easily, and found the lever marked ON/OFF. She quickly forced it down, causing the foam prison to stop lowering. Sen dangled helplessly over the vat of formaldehyde, unable to free itself. Iris crossed over to the front of the Tender, keeping a wide birth so as to not be in reach of its head. It lashed out, attempting to bite her head, but falling short. Iris could hear the clicks that formed as its base language. Through the battle, she had lain dormant in Wolf’s mind, and she had watched and listened to this creature intently. It was nothing she had known in her lifetime, or even after that. It was a large creature, yet was closer to a plant than an animal. It wanted to set free the seeds on its body, yes was doing so one per world. Iris had done the math; it had enough seeds to overrun every world that they entered. She was no vigilante. She didn’t care about the empty station, the tribes of the last round, or these strange underwater denizens. All she cared about was revenge for what happened to Wolf. Even if it only meant taking out the two organising the battle, then she’d be happy.
While Sen’s language was nonsense to even Wolf, Iris had a vague understanding of what it was saying, and how to speak it herself.

“Calm yourself!”

The Tender stopped its wild aggress, and watched Iris through its large beady eyes. There was not enough language to tell it that she was an ally, or that she was not an enemy. However, Iris knew it cared for the seeds alone.

“I assist the Tender.” Was what she settled on telling it.

If there was one thing Iris was happy about the battle, it was that she had entered it stealthily. The two organisers had no idea of her potential, her powers. She was more than human. In her time in the underworld, Iris had seen many souls. Both humans and animals rotted away in eternal torment. Many lost their minds easily, yet Iris was the Shaman who had devoured the power of a god. She not only fought off anything that would come near her in that land, she rebelled against the creatures that had run it. Every time she saw an animal’s spirit that had retained none of it’s sanity she would devour it to gain its power. And over the several hundred years in that world, she had gained plenty of souls to use. She felt the ebb and flow of the souls within her body and mind, and sought out a jumble of predatory birds. A silver essence seeped from her body and converged on her arms, taking on the appearance of large, sharp talons.
Of course, the essence wasn’t just for show. It enhanced her body greatly in many different ways. With just a few quick, rapid strikes Iris had shaved off enough foam for the Tender to break free. It slammed into the ground, away from the vats. It quickly tore off the remaining foam and fought it’s was to a standing position
It regarded Iris for a few seconds, and while Iris wondered whether or not it would be hostile they were interrupted by the drone. As they were in a clear line of fire, it began shooting as soon as it turned on them. While Iris had faster reflexes, she managed to make a small wall over the Tender before the bullets hit. It managed to deflect most of them off course, but the Tender was still grazed by several of the rounds. Sen tore through the remnants of the spirit wall and bound after the drone, just getting more enraged by each bullet that pierced it’s thick hide. It pounded the drone into the wall with its large claw, and began tearing through the metal and wiring within its body.
Iris felt only ashamed that she had allowed the tender to come to harm. She needed it alive to cause as much havoc as possible. She knew that such thoughts were evil, but she had long stopped caring about lives or morality. She would never regain a life of her own, and her very existence had ended had stopped one life too many in this battle.

The human is sad?

Iris bit her lip as she heard the sound of pity in Wolf’s voice. It was bad enough that she had killed the animal, but now she was cursed to be in its place instead. To have his voice in her head instead of the other way around was a cruel fate. She chose to ignore Wolf for the time being. She had more pressing matters to attend to.

She examined the wreckage of the drone. Sure enough, Sen had torn a large amount of the insides out. Iris couldn’t make much sense of what was left, so assumed it was destroyed. Sen was walking down the street, so Iris decided to follow. A loud bang echoed through the streets, originating from the drone. Iris turned to see its eyes dimming, and the weapon it held fall to the floor. With little reason to stay, Iris followed the Tender on whatever path it was making for itself, content with being a destroyer rather than a savoir.